Pirelli refutes Lewis Hamilton’s wet tire waste allegations

Formula 1's sustainability drive - Pirelli's efforts to reduce tire wastage and reuse Wet Tires unveiled by Mario Isola.

Pirelli refutes Lewis Hamilton’s wet tire waste allegations

Lewis Hamilton (Image credit: The Economic Times) and Mario Isola (Image credit: Autosport.com)

Designed to bolster F1’s sustainability reputation by lessening the necessary freight per event, the tire allocation per driver has been decreased from 13 sets to 11 for the Budapest race. However, Lewis Hamilton, in the post-qualifying interview, mentioned that unused sets of wet tires were thrown out every weekend. Pirelli, although the Formula 1 tire supplier, reassured that drivers’ concerns about wet tire disposal after races are unfounded.

Mario Isola, Pirelli’s head of motorsport, explained that for overseas events, the logistics become complex. Because the rims need to travel with the teams, while the tires must go separately for customs reasons. Looking ahead, the plan is to enable the dismounting and refitting of tires from the rims at the next event.

YouTube video

Isola also mentioned that Pirelli had discussed the possibility of not fitting all the tires for races in consistently sunny weather tracks. This way, if the new procedure is implemented, the unused tires can be saved for future events. Numerous ideas are being considered to minimize the wastage of wet and intermediate tyres.

FS Video

“The idea for the future is to have the possibility to dismount the tyres from the rims, and fit them again, at the following event,” he said. “Another idea that we have discussed in the past was for races where we have weather conditions that usually are sunny, like Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, or Jeddah, not to fit all the tyres,” Isola further explained.

Also read: Pirelli boss not pleased with hype for the return of tire showdown, wants ‘drivers to be the heroes’ on race days

Lewis Hamilton’s criticism sparks environmental concerns for Pirelli

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton (Image credit: Sky Sports)

Formula One has taken several huge steps recently to make the sport more environmentally sustainable. However, after Lewis Hamilton’s criticism on Saturday, many questioned Pirelli’s controversial habit. In the same interview, Mario Isola mentioned that wet weather tires not pre-heated can be reused, unlike rubber which has gone through a heat cycle.

They mentioned that the wet tires could be handled without blankets, which would be applied to the intermediate tires in the updated version. If a tire in a set was damaged due to a heat cycle, all four had to be replaced for uniformity. However, without blankets, only the damaged tire could be replaced, leading to substantial savings.

“We can do that with the wet tyres because they are no more in blankets and we will do that for intermediate tyres with the new version without blankets,” Isola continued. “That is because if you have one tyre damaged in one set of tyres that had some heat cycle then you have to replace all the tyres to have all the four the same.”

In case you missed it: