Pirelli tire punctures caused by debris?
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was eventful this Sunday with two very similar phenomena involving a puncture on the left rear tire of Stroll and Verstappen almost at the same location and on the same hard Pirelli compounds. Coincidence or weakness of the hard tire in Baku?
At this stage of the Grand Prix, we know that Pirelli has been a major player in the show and the unforeseen events that led to seeing a German driver we didn’t expect on the podium one day and a Frenchman, Pierre Gasly, in a modest AlphaTauri.
Two very similar incidents on the 30th lap and the 45th lap disrupted the race in Baku. The F1 cars of Lance Stroll and Max Verstappen, both equipped with hard tires, suffered a puncture at the entry of the straight line in Baku at around 300 km/h. Both drivers, unscathed, had two very similar accidents caused by a puncture of the left rear tire, losing control of the car.
« We need to clarify what happened in the incidents involving Lance Stroll and Max Verstappen and understand what happened. What we can say at the moment is that a tear was also found on Lewis Hamilton’s tire and that normally the rear right tire is more solicited than the left. No vibrations or alerts were detected on the tires that punctured before they punctured. No evidence was found either on other more used tires of excessive wear. » commented Isola.
Pirelli has already been strongly criticized in recent seasons for endurance problems on certain tires that sometimes exploded at the end of the straight. This problem had since been resolved and in the latest races, it was the opposite that observers could complain about: tires capable of almost completing a Grand Prix and thus making the races too monotonous.
The interesting fact here is that the hard tires are the most “resistant” technically, brought by Pirelli to Baku. It is the C3 compound, intermediate on the hardness range from C1 to C5 and therefore, should, a priori, not be considered as fragile tires.
An external cause could therefore explain the punctures that have appeared in the same place where the powerful traction minivans are. Nails? pieces of glass? sewer covers?
Therefore currently we cannot exclude that these two issues result from an external phenomenon to the tire. Of course, we agree that these things should not happen and that the teams want answers to their questions.
