There was much heat but not much light generated when Sebastian Vettel unloaded his anger onto the waiting television crews after the Belgian Grand Prix.
He then legged it to his helicopter to beat the rainstorm hurtling over the tops of the trees in the forest of the Ardennes, to leave us in no doubt that it was no fault of his or Ferrari’s that his right rear tyre had burst at nigh on 200mph to rob him of third place.
By the time I got to Paul Hembery, Pirelli’s director of motorsport, about an hour later, he was mightily fed up. “That’s it,” he said. “You only come around when it is all going wrong.” That was pretty much on the nail.
The last time we were pitched into this sort of conversation was 2013, at the end of a British Grand Prix that was almost cancelled halfway through as tyres exploded like bursting balloons at a toddler’s birthday party. This time, Hembery left me with this thought: since that debacle at Silverstone, Pirelli have made more than 70,000 tyres for Formula One with barely an incident worth recording.
Then we get two in one weekend. Just like the weather in Spa-Francorchamps, it never rains but it pours. Strangely, it was only 24 hours before Vettel’s anger was put into tragic and sad perspective. Justin Wilson, a much-loved and respected racing driver, smashed into a piece of debris at an IndyCar race in Pennsylvania about the time the time we were all putting memories of Spa behind us and heading for bed.
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His death has shocked a tight-knit community already in recovery from the loss of Jules Bianchi. The quest for safety goes on, yet it will always be a moving target. Fix one thing and something else pops up.
This time it was tyres and as far as Vettel is concerned - and the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, who clambered into the argument - this was all about Pirelli’s failings as a tyre supplier. This was drivers against Pirelli.
As I said in my race report, the blame game is ugly at the best of times but worse when the facts are in danger of distortion. A dictionary definition of the blame game reads: “Accusations exchanged among people who refuse to accept sole responsibility for some undesirable event.” Responsibility....
The simple fact is this: Pirelli advised teams that their medium tyre could be good for 40 laps. The operative word there is “could”, because Hembery says that was no more than an advisory and did not take into account external factors, such as the car and the driver. By Sunday, almost every team was talking about two stops – even Ferrari. Vettel contemplated a second stop during the race.
But the gamble was to go long, all the way to the finish on a single set of medium tyres. The 30 laps required should have been within the advisory and the data suggested it was possible.
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Here is a thing, though: watch Vettel on his charge around Spa, riding the kerbs and ignoring them entirely going through high-speed Raidillon where he was cranking his Ferrari up to 200mph. Bam! He goes straight through the kerbs, regularly ignoring the track limits. That is rubber on ridged concrete at well over 100mph for 28 laps on the fastest, toughest, most gruelling track of them all.
I am no scientist nor do I have the facts on Vettel’s tyre burst – neither, incidentally, does he – but it seems to me that if you abuse any component with such relish, you are risking a breakdown.
Vettel’s contention, backed up by his driving Band of Brothers, is that no tyre should burst, even after serious wear. Vettel’s lap times had stayed pretty consistent throughout his stint on the medium tyre and there was no warning of what was to come.
But that is how it happens, isn’t it? You take a gamble, push the limits and, if you win, great. If you lose, then it’s someone else’s fault.
You will hear more than one driver mutter that the Pirellis are no good, behind their hands in the paddock. But what do they mean by that? Do they want rock-hard rubber that never wears and can go on for thousands of miles? That would be a great advert for Pirelli. No, what F1 insisted on was tyres that degrade so that there are pitstops to mix up the action and cars that become more difficult to drive as the rubber wears thin. That is what Pirelli have, by and large, provided. Unfortunately, Hembery has discovered you can’t please all of the people all of the time.
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Pirelli may well have to take some of the blame but isn’t a team that threw the dice and lost potentially culpable, too? They pushed to the edge of performance and this time slid over the side. It happens.
Monza comes next and guess what? Lots of high speed, lots of kerbs and lots of opportunities for drivers to ignore the track limits and bounce their way over the chicanes. Will that mean more punctures, and more of the blame game? Probably. Best to come prepared, Paul.