F1 and FIA risk Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton anger with unpopular rule

Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton’s concerns appear to have been ignored by F1 and FIA bosses as Pirelli chief Mario Isola hints that the unpopular ATA could be brought in on a permanent basis. F1 experimented with the rule change at both the Hungaroring and Monza, which saw tyre allocations reduced from 13 to 11.

This also had an impact on qualifying as the rules required the hard tyre to be used in Q1, medium in Q2 and soft in Q3. The regulation change has been trialled to help F1’s move to become more sustainable.

And Isola now suggests the format could be introduced on a permanent basis as part of the sport’s regulations. “[We have to [assess] the pros and cons of the new format. Then we will make a decision,” he said.

“If there is a need to do a bit of fine-tuning – like for example considering one extra set for FP2 instead of seven sets for the race, with just six sets for the race which is more than enough and perhaps an extra set for VT2 with the same total number possible. To be fair, we compared the number of laps they did in FP1, VT2 and FP3 to last year and it is very similar.”

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But it proved to be an unpopular format for some drivers when it was first trialled at the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend. Both Verstappen and Hamilton led the criticism, stating their main concern was about the lack of racing done on Friday.

Hamilton said: “We only had one tyre that we were going to use this session. Not really a great format this change that they made for this weekend, it just means we get less running.

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“Not ideal, and there’s a lot of wet tyres I think they throw away after every weekend, like a lot, maybe they should look at something like that rather than taking time on track away from the fans.”

Verstappen agreed with his rival, insisting F1 needs to focus their sustainability aims elsewhere. He said: “With this new format, you are just super limited with the tyre sets that you can use, and I didn’t want to use them today to at least have a bit more of a better preparation tomorrow.

“It’s a shame. There are so many people around and you basically don’t run a lot so we will have to see what we can do to improve that. We are literally just saving tyres which I think is not the correct thing.”

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