Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll are going into today’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix confident the dramatic, high-speed tyre failures they experienced last year will not be repeated.
The pair were both pitched nose-first into barriers at the fastest point on the Baku City Circuit after experiencing similar left-rear tyre failures during the race.
An investigation into the failures by F1’s official tyre supplier Pirelli led to the introduction of new operating instructions for teams intended to ensure they stick within pressure limits during races.
F1 has introduced a new tyre specification since last year, switching from 13-inch tyres to 18-inches. No failures have occured during practice or qualifying for today’s race, but the same was also true ahead of last year’s grand prix.
Going into the weekend, Verstappen was confident the problem he experienced last year would not recur. “No, because it [was] not our fault,” he said. “So, there’s nothing we can do.
“We have completely different tyres anyway, this year, so the tyres are going to behave anyway very, very different.”
Stroll was also confident the tyre failures seen last year will not be repeated today.
“I don’t think we were doing anything wrong last year in terms of strategy, I think it was an unexpected tyre failure,” he said. “And I hope it doesn’t happen again.
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“It wasn’t fun having a tyre failure at those speed. We had great pace and we were on for a good race and those kinds of things are never fun. So hopefully it doesn’t happen again.”
Following the first day of practice on Friday, Pirelli issued revised tyre guidelines to teams, instructing them to increase their minimum rear tyre pressures to 22.5psi. The manufacturer’s head of motorsport, Mario Isola, said they had found “nothing unexpected” in their tyre inspections after practice.
“We decided to raise the rear pressure by one psi because the telemetry data we…
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