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Nico Rosberg
As good as the performances of the top four were in Korea, the race was somewhat overshadowed by three safety related incidents. The first of these came on lap 28. Nico Rosberg had been catching his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton hand over fist over the preceding laps as the Briton suffered with a badly degraded right front tyre. While Mercedes inexplicably left Hamilton on track, Rosberg made his move in the DRS zone on the run down to turn three. As the German pulled alongside his team-mate his front wing failed and sparks flew under the car as he made his way back to the pits. Mercedes will certainly be concerned at the failure which, had the wing become completely detached, could have caused a serious incident for both of their cars.
Rosberg’s front wing failure was, perhaps, the least serious of the three safety incidents. The next came on lap 31. Sergio Perez, following a big lock up into turn one, was making his way down the straight on the approach to turn three when his right front tyre on his McLaren failed completely. The tyre delaminated, causing a puncture for Mark Webber who ran over the debris and brought out the first of two safety cars. While Pirelli will undoubtedly point to the age of the tyre – Perez had been on that set of tyres for over twenty laps – and the huge lock up as the cause of the delamination, we’re once again left with some question marks over the tyres currently used in Formula one.
In the run up to the race, Fernando Alonso had heavily criticised the Pirelli tyres, calling into question the quality of the product that Pirelli are producing. The Spaniard is particularly worried about tyre durability, stating “We are getting used to these tyres that cannot last one lap”, going on to label the tyres as “not normal”, explaining that “If you push, you finish the tyres”. The pre race response from Pirelli was robust, with their motorsport director Paul Hembery calling Alonso’s comments “disappointing and below the standards you would expect from such a champion”.
After yet another race where tyre degradation was once again the overriding factor in the race, you can’t help but think that Alonso has a point. In Korea it was the right front tyre that was the limiting factor. Aside from Perez’s total tyre failure, we heard Lewis Hamilton complaining bitterly about his tyres over team radio and numerous other team radio messages between other teams and drivers concerning right front tyre wear.
Mark Webber added his criticism of the tyres to Alonso’s after the race in Korea, saying “Pirelli will put the puncture of Perez down to a lock-up but the reason the drivers are locking up is because there’s no tread left”. He also highlighted the overriding role that tyre wear is having in modern Formula one results by saying that “The drivers aren’t super important”. With Pirelli now confirmed as the Formula 1 tyre supplier for 2014, we’ll have to wait to see if they change their approach to tyre construction. I personally hope that they do.
While, Perez’s tyre failure was concerning, though, the tyre situation has certainly improved from earlier in the season, with the low point being at the British grand prix where there were multiple failures. Indeed, in Korea the tyres were not the biggest safety concern. That came on lap 38. Adrian Sutil spun and hit Mark Webber’s Red Bull at the hairpin, bursting an oil radiator on the Australian’s car. This caused a fire, the second in two races on Webber’s car, and as the Red Bull was engulfed in flames a fire safety truck was released to deal with the inferno, but bizarrely BEFORE the deployment of the safety car. As it turned out, the FIA had expected that the fire truck from turn three, where Webber’s car was ablaze, would be used, but instead the truck from turn one was called into action, which we saw making its way down the main straight with a train of F1 cars closing in. The safety car was then deployed, but had the turn three truck been used, we might not even have needed the second safety car at all.
The situation was certainly a strange one, and one the Formula 1 one bosses will not be keen to see repeated. I’m sure that procedures will be re-examined and tightened as a result, but that won’t be of too much concern to Sebastian Vettel. The German is all but certain to take the world drivers’ championship yet again.
