Red Bull protest against Mercedes and Pirelli tests
MONACO: Mercedes and Pirelli are under pressure to answer questions over why Mercedes was allowed to conduct inseason tyre testing following the Spanish Grand Prix two weeks ago, prompting rival Red Bull to launch an official protest against Mercedes shortly before the start of yesterday’s Monaco GP.
‘‘We feel it’s not in line with the rules so that’s why we’ve protested before the race,’’ Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said.
In agreement with Mercedes, Pirelli conducted tyre testing following the Spanish GP, which is not permitted under the sport’s rules. However, Pirelli insists its contract allows it to conduct private tests with individual teams under special circumstances.
F1’s governing body has yet to comment but Pirelli’s head of motorsport, Paul Hembery, believes there is no wrongdoing.
‘‘It’s completely regular in that we are allowed to do a 1,000km tyre test with any team,’’ he said.
‘‘In the World Rally Championship contract it’s exactly the same. We can do it with a representative car. We’ve done it before with another team, and we’ve asked another team to do some work as well.’’
Hembery says the testing was to look at possibilities to develop next year’s tyres — providing Pirelli is still the official manufacturer — and in no way gave Mercedes any advantage in Monaco.
‘‘Absolutely not, because it’s no relevance to what’s happening here,’’ he said. ‘‘Mercedes haven’t a clue what on earth we were testing in reality.’’
Niki Lauda, Mercedes GP’s nonexecutive chairman, added on SkySports television that the FIA gave permission to conduct the testing.
‘‘We asked the FIA ‘Are we allowed to do this?’ The FIA confirmed it and said ‘yes’, so therefore we did the test,’’ Lauda said. ‘‘These tests can always come in cases of emergency, so Mercedes did absolutely nothing wrong.’’
Horner is unhappy that the testing took place at all.
‘‘First of all we need to deal with it through the proper channels, and that’s what we’ll look at doing,’’ Horner said.
Pirelli has been under pressure in recent weeks because of the fastdegrading nature of its tyres — with nearly 80 pit stops at the Spanish GP.
Red Bull, led by Horner and championship leader Sebastian Vettel, has been one of the fiercest critics of the Pirelli tyres, and the manufacturer still does not have the backing of all teams — or any word from the FIA — over a new contract for next season. Pirelli responded to the criticism over the weakness of its tyres by recently pledging to make modifications at next month’s Canadian GP.
The fact that Mercedes has been struggling for race pace, and that Pirelli has been trying to improve the resistance of its tyres, seemingly gives extra meaning to the private testing.
‘‘Irrelevant of what you call it, that’s testing,’’ Horner said.
‘‘They’ve both cars on the front row of the grid, so it’s not hurt.’’
However, Mercedes has been fastest in qualifying for four straight races so it is debatable whether the testing made any difference to their gaining pole in Monaco.