Sebastian Vetell’s eighth GP win of the year in Austin, Texas was the on-track action, but off-track the F1 world was put ‘on-notice’ by tyre supplier Pirelli regarding the new regulations for 2014.
This year, F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone requested Pirelli to supply tyres which degraded quickly in order to inject some excitement into the races.
However in the face of mounting criticism of its tyres’ performance – especially at the British Grand Prix which saw some spectacular failures – the Italian giant says these aggressive tyres will be a thing of the past, replaced by a conservative approach for 2014 with new turbocharged 1.6-litre V6 engines powering the F1 grid.
Pirelli boss Paul Hembrey told journalists in Austin that unless clear guidance is forthcoming from the F1 management, and that position in documented in the race regulations, the 2014 tyres will be designed for one-stop races.
Designing and constructing F1 tyres is a complex task and Pirelli’s on-going concern is the sport is now heading into the winter recess and no-one has finalized the required tyre strategy for the new cars which debut in 2014.
The updated 2014 F1 calendar was handed-out in Austin and with the season-opening GP scheduled for Melbourne on 16 March, Pirelli’s tyre engineers need to climb an enormous mountain in order to have the final specification tyres ready.
Abu Dhabi will now host the final race of the year (16 November) with the traditional last race (Brazil) now the penultimate GP on 2 November.
In Austin, Vettel made F1 history by becoming the sport’s first driver to win eight races in one season. Lotus driver Romain Grosjean continued his strong end-of-year pace by finishing second, 6.2 seconds behind Vettel and just ahead of Australian Mark Webber (Red Bull) who was third. Webber battled hard with Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton in the early going but was concerned about vibrations under braking.
