Guenther Steiner blasts F1’s indecisiveness, says correct Pirelli tires will remove lack of overtaking

Guenther Steiner says F1 should focus on what they want from the Pirelli tires amidst the lack of overtaking.

Guenther Steiner blasts F1’s indecisiveness, says correct Pirelli tires will remove lack of overtaking

Guenther Steiner(Image via Daily Star)

The Italian tire manufacturer, Pirelli, have supplied F1 teams with tires since 2011. But they have been on the safe side the past few seasons. This approach has crippled the F1 teams’ potential to try different strategies. The best example would be the Australian Grand Prix, where most teams were coerced into a one-stop race after the red flag. Guenther Steiner, Haas team boss, claims F1 should “make up their mind” over the tires.

During the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg and Alpine driver Esteban Ocon almost completed the race on Pirelli’s hard compound tires. They only made a pitstop because it is mandatory to use two different tire compounds over the course of a race. There was criticism over the lack of overtaking in Baku due to the decision of shortening the DRS zone by 100 meters. However, Guenther Steiner blames the tire choices and believes F1 should look into what they want from Pirelli. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjYFKp8fKvw

Steiner told Motorsports.com, “I think we need to look into the tires. We always complain when we have a drop-off. And always complain when we don’t have it. We need to make our mind up what we want because I think Pirelli delivered both ways and then we say now it’s too much, so it will always be difficult.”

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Guenther Steiner says overtaking will be difficult in F1 due to tire choices

F1 (Image via The Race)
F1 (Image via The Race)

Steiner claims F1 had good races this season with overtaking. He wants to try to replicate it and not be focused on the Azerbaijan GP. There was a drop in the amount of overtakes in Baku, with only 23 overtakes during the feature race. This might be because of the hard tires that are way too hard. 

The 58-year-old spoke about the Miami GP. He said, “Obviously, we all expected red flags, there will be safety cars, and nothing of that happened. But I’m pretty positive that if there needs to be something done, we will do it to make it easier. It will never be easy to overtake.” In the Miami GP, there were more overtakes between drivers on different pitstop strategies. This highlights the importance of the tires. 

Guenther Steiner believes overtaking in F1 will always be a problem and that last year was better than this year. He claims that shortening the DRS zone in Baku did not help the sport.

F1’s main goal is to provide entertainment for its fans. That’s the reason why they introduced new regulations in 2022 to close the gap between the teams. But now, there is a lack of lap time difference, and the cars find it difficult to get out of the DRS train. Steiner believes that less overtaking could be because of the new rules, and F1 will sort it out. 

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