GREATER NOIDA, India: Pirelli has warned it may be forced to quit Formula One if it is not given enough time to test its tyres before new engines are introduced next season, reports said.
Paul Hembery, motorsport director of Formula One’s official supplier, said Pirelli wouldn’t be able to provide tyres if there were no tests before the end of this year. The Italian manufacturer wants to try out the tyres before cars roll out with their new turbo motors, ordered in a shake-up of engine specifications, in official testing late January in Spain.
“It (testing) must be able to run before the end of the year otherwise we cannot make the tyres in time for the first test at Jerez,” Hembery told reporters at the Indian Grand Prix.
“We have to do some testing, if we can’t then we’ll not be able to provide the tyres,” he added.
Hembery said discussions had started towards finding a solution but he admitted that a pre-Christmas test was a long shot.
“Clearly we would love to have a 2014 car in December -- that’s what we’d really like. If you asked me what we really need, that’s what we really need. We can’t have that.”
Meanwhile, formula One dominator Sebastian Vettel gave short shrift yesterday to the new, electric Formula E series, saying it would be far too quiet and was “not the future”.
Five teams have already been signed for the planned field of 10 to race electric cars in city centres around the world, starting in Beijing next September.
“I don’t like it at all, I think it’s not the future,” Vettel said at the Indian Grand Prix, where victory today will give him a fourth consecutive drivers title.
“I think people come here to feel Formula One and there is not much to feel when a car goes by and you don’t even hear anything but the wind.
“Maybe I am very old-fashioned, but I think Formula One needs to scream, needs to be loud and there needs to be vibration.”
Vettel said he will never forget the first time he went to Formula One in 1992 to watch a free practice at Hockenheim.
“Even though it was wet and the cars did not go out, once they did their installation laps it was a great feeling just to be there and hear them coming through the forest,” he said. AGENCIES
