Formula 1 chiefs have scrapped a planned rule change for next season after drivers spoke out against it.
Tyre blankets have been a hot topic in recent times. They are used to warm up tyres on cars before they head out onto the track, but there are plans to get rid of them by the 2024 season which have already begun to take effect.
This year teams are permitted to heat tyres to 70 degrees Celsius, which is cooler than what was permitted in 2021. The next stage of the plan was to reduce that figure to 50 degrees next year, but that idea has now been scrapped in the wake of the Pirelli tyre test in Austin last month.
Drivers practiced using the 2023 compounds heated to 50 degrees, and found it very difficult to get them warmed up once out on track. It meant a lot of traction problems and fears being raised that the risk of crashing at high speeds would be a lot higher.
Max Verstappen was one of those to point out the problem. "It was not enjoyable. I drove on 50 degrees and I almost spun in the pit lane. I also had the hardest compound but I think there is a lot more to it," said the Red Bull racer, adding: "I think we will have a lot of crashes, that I know already."
Lando Norris agreed, telling reporters: "It's an unsafe thing rather than it just doesn't feel as nice to drive. "A current era F1 car, which is designed so specifically with all the aero and stuff, it's not made to go out on cold tyres. Once you go to a much colder race track, or if it is a little bit damp or something, everyone is going to shunt the car at some point. No driver wants it, basically."
Speaking to The Race, Pirelli motorsport director Mario Isola confirmed that the company would "listen to drivers" and scrap the 50 degrees plan in 2023. But the tyre maker still plans to get rid of the blankets completely in 2024, and will be creating brand new compounds to offset the grip problem.
"I don't believe it's dangerous, but in Austin, which is a high-energy circuit, we had some issues with the warm-up," he said. "After listening to the drivers, we started to consider that if Austin is a high-severity circuit with very good weather conditions and they had an issue with a warm-up, what happens at street circuits, low-severity circuits with smooth Tarmac, or in poor conditions?
"The target is to ban blankets for 2024 and the idea was to go in this direction step-by-step. The plan is still in place, but looking at the test in Austin, it seems that 50°C is not a suitable option for next year.
"So we made some calculations of the energy consumption, considering different scenarios as we have some blankets in Milan that we used for our test. We found two hours is the time needed to warm up the tyre at 70°C, so we have an additional hour at the moment that is just maintaining the temperature.
"If, instead of going down to 50°C, we cut one hour [of the currently-permitted three hours at 70°C] we discovered that it is a lot more efficient, we save more energy and we don't create any issue with the warm-up. So the drivers can go out and push, as they are doing now. That's why we decided in Mexico to test the blankets at 70°C for two hours instead of three hours.
"What we collected in terms of information in Austin is useful for us for further developing the compounds. We know we have to make quite a big step to get rid of blankets in 2024 – it's not just redesigning the construction completely, it's also redesigning all the five compounds.
"And we have now a test plan that we started to discuss with the FIA and FOM and soon with the teams to see if it is feasible. Obviously we need to test on track and that is the plan."
