Michael Schumacher criticizes Pirelli tires

In Malaysia, Pirelli had decided, to cope with the constraints of the Sepang circuit, particularly in terms of heat, to offer drivers the hardest tires in their range, namely the mediums and hards. In Bahrain, where the weather conditions were generally hot and sunny, the Italian manufacturer decided to take a risk by opting for the soft and medium tires, the same compounds used in China where the weather conditions are traditionally much more clement.

Therefore, with ambient temperatures that very rarely dropped below 30°C, the Bahrain Grand Prix was mainly a matter of managing Italian tires. During the race, drivers literally avoided the soft tires, with a few rare exceptions, and the problem had already emerged during qualifying, with top drivers striving to keep as many sets of new tires as possible for the race.

This situation, however, has not made everyone happy, especially at Mercedes, whose W03 seems to have inherited from its predecessor its difficulties in preserving the Italian tires: « Everyone has to drive well below the limits of the driver and, in particular, the car to preserve the tires » complained Michael Schumacher in the Sakhir paddock. « I am not satisfied with the situation. I’m simply asking if the tires should have such importance. They should last a bit longer so that you can race at normal speed and not as if we were behind the safety car. If it only happened to us, you could tell us to deal with it. »

Indeed, the German is not the only one struggling with the Italian tires, as Jenson Button testifies: « Last year, we knew that the tires were degrading, but we understood them. This year, I really don’t know what to do with these tires, but it’s not an excuse because other people did a good job with them this weekend » acknowledges the Englishman, likely thinking of Red Bull and Lotus who finished the race in the top four positions.

Paul Hembery, competition director at Pirelli, is surprised by the Mercedes driver’s statements regarding the tires, despite recalling all the good things he had said about them during winter testing: “Now, it seems he has changed his tune,” comments the Briton. “It was certainly a technically demanding race, on a circuit where we had never run in race conditions before, however, we chose to bring soft and medium tires to offer many strategic options. Although tire degradation was a factor during the race, which was already apparent in the qualifying strategies, the tires held up extremely well against the constraints imposed on them. During the last part of the race, the priority for the drivers was to ensure the tires didn’t collapse in performance, a task they all managed very well.”

For the record, it was at the teams’ request for more spectacle and race strategies that the Milan-based company decided to adopt deliberately softer and less durable tires than the Bridgestone tires, which on some occasions lasted the duration of a Grand Prix in 2010.