Pirelli stands ready to supply special ‘qualifying tyres’ to formula one teams next year.

With the emphasis of the sport’s spectacle now relying on the complex and heavily degrading control tyres, it was the qualifying session that suffered last weekend in Barcelona.

Arguably to the detriment of Saturday’s spectacle, teams took an exceedingly strategic view of the fight for pole position, with some drivers sitting out the decisive ‘Q3′ runout altogether.

One solution, according to Pirelli’s chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera, is the return of ‘qualifying tyres’.

The proposal has been made following recent criticism, notably by seven time world champion Michael Schumacher, of Pirelli’s 2012 product.

Tronchetti defended his marque’s approach.

“What we have is many competitive cars, which is what the teams wanted — opprtunity for everyone who is able to win,” he told Italian radio Rai GR Parlamento.

“So it’s fine if someone complains. We are available to the teams. We are ready to make qualifying tyres tomorrow.

“But they are choices that are not ours.”

Getting the setup right is a challenge teams are grappling with in 2012.

So far this season, four different cars have won the four grands prix, with Pirelli’s difficult tyres credited or blamed for the unbalance of power.

The key, according to Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn, is car setup.

“We can’t modify the setup between qualifying on Saturday and the race on Sunday,” he is quoted by Brazil’s O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper. “And they are very different challenges, especially with this year’s tyres.

“It’s one thing to get the car to be fast on one lap and quite another to make it fast and consistent over 70.

“Whoever can anticipate what will be required for the race and come to a compromise – maybe to the detriment of grid position – should have a decisive advantage in the race.

“But it’s not easy to anticipate what happens on Sunday,” insisted Brawn.

The Schumacher brothers are adamant Red Bull must now impose team orders if it wants to win the 2010 drivers’ world championship.

Their young countryman Sebastian Vettel looked set to take the points lead from his Australian teammate Mark Webber, who crashed on the slippery Yeongam circuit, after controlling Sunday’s Korean grand prix from pole position.

But Vettel also retired from the race with an engine failure, leaving him 14 points shy of Webber, who is now 11 points behind new championship leader Fernando Alonso.

With just two races to go, Ralf Schumacher thinks Red Bull’s new strategy should be obvious.

“Now Red Bull need to play a single card; Mark Webber,” the former grand prix winner, in Korea to commentate for German television, is quoted by Bild newspaper.

“Sebastian needs to get as many points as he can, but Red Bull must see to it that Webber gets the title,” Schumacher added.

Reluctantly, because it will be to the detriment of his friend Vettel, seven time world champion Michael Schumacher also said a team strategy must now be taken by Red Bull for the remaining Brazilian and Abu Dhabi grands prix.

“I’m sorry for Sebastian,” he told German television Sky. “I have to recall almost a decade ago, when everyone thought we at Ferrari were crazy to be thinking about the championship so early.

“But if Red Bull had done the same, their worry lines would be much smaller now,” added the German.

His reference to “almost a decade ago” must surely be about 2002, when Ferrari was roundly condemned for moving Rubens Barrichello aside so that Schumacher could take maximum points from the Austrian grand prix.

Ferrari implemented a similarly controversial strategy at Hockenheim earlier this year, and on Sunday Fernando Alonso moved to the head of the drivers’ title standings.

But Red Bull team boss Christian Horner was quoted on Sunday as saying he will not be making Webber the number 1 driver for the rest of 2010.

But he also told reporters at Yeongam: “I haven’t had time to look at all the mathematics and scenarios. It’s something that obviously we will look at pretty closely between now and Brazil.”

Vettel, however, made clear he is not personally ready to give up, even though his engine failure seriously dented his charge in Korea.

“It is very significant for the championship situation, but I am the last to give up,” German media quote him as saying.

Martin Whitmarsh has chimed in on the tension at Red Bull by insisting the same situation would not occur at McLaren.
Mark Webber was obviously angry after qualifying the sister RB6 at Silverstone, with his new front wing given to pole sitter Sebastian Vettel after the young German’s broke in morning practice.

Boss Christian Horner said the decision was based on Vettel’s higher position in the world championship and better pace at Silverstone, surmising that giving both drivers the older specification wing would have “hurt the whole team”.

But Whitmarsh, boss of the rival McLaren team, indicated that he would not give just one driver a single new component.

“This weekend we were pushing very hard to bring forward this new floor, and we decided that if there was only one we would not use it for this race,” he told reporters.

“I think the cohesiveness of the team is such that you don’t need to set up those sort of tensions.”

Last year, Lewis Hamilton was given a single car upgrade ahead of his then teammate Heikki Kovalainen, and Whitmarsh said he felt “deeply uncomfortable” about it.

In Red Bull’s position, with Australian Webber clearly feeling he is being ‘stitched up’ in Vettel’s favour, Whitmarsh suggested that the decision taken by Horner on Saturday was wrong.

“In those circumstances it is to the detriment to the overall performance of the team, and certainly the individual who feels he is being stitched up — to use your expression,” he said.

When also asked about Saturday’s incident, Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn joked: “I think they should have given the wing to us!”

Red Bull can avoid the alleged detriment of engine performance been good. But team boss Christian Horner is not sure whether this can succeed again in 2011. His team will also start next year with Renault engines. “According to studies, we have three percent less power,” Horner says to ‘Autosport’ to compare the engines of Renault and Mercedes top of the class.

“These are about 30-35 hp, which may account for duchaus four tenths per lap. As long as we have not rehearsed on independent test facilities, we can not say exactly,” said Horner. He added: “We hear Ross Brawn often talk about weight, focus or efficiency of cooling. The more power you, the more heat is also generated. You have to see it holistically. When can the aerodynamic rules little room, then the motor an important factor. ”
Horner himself is now sorry to have to bring the subject motor alignment always on the table. “In the regulations it is not clearly defined, that is the problem.” The Red Bull team boss wants to know his words understood nich as criticism of Renault. “We have a great relationship with Renault. Unfortunately, the product is frozen in the development, at the same time remains of course the deficit.”

“Mercedes has made clear that they will serve no other team, so we must find other ways for the coming season to establish a healthy balance,” said Horner. “It is not good if one engine is significantly superior to all others.” The Renault engine but also have advantages: “It is compact, a good machine – just like the Ferrari. But lack of PS-figures can not be offset by other things.”

It is a balancing act between being a team needs two strong drivers who drive each other to the limit in order to develop the full potential of the car. On the other hand, an excessive stable rivalry affect extremely destructive, as the Red-Bull-collision between Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel showed in Istanbul.

Curiously, it was said before the season benefit that Red Bull from the stable driver pairing and it will be at McLaren with two world champions in the team only a matter of time before the great crash between Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton is. But it can not be said – that proved the two in Turkey, as she fought a tough, but risked no collision.
Jenson Button believes that a competitive situation Ohata has a fertilizing effect: If one were to make Sebastian Vettel is now the number one, “would be detrimental to both.” A prime example is called the world champion his own team: “I know one hundred percent that we will be treated equally. And by that I mean not in terms of material, but how people behave in a team.”

An interesting statement, especially since it was precisely in this respect prior years at McLaren massive potential for conflict. 2007, the then-McLaren team boss Ron Dennis confirmed any cases that Fernando Alonso, the same material as team’s Lewis Hamilton get, but the proud Spaniard felt particularly reprehensible human left in the lurch.

A situation that is Jenson Button in a team match with Lewis Hamilton a stranger, “My mechanic want me to win, and his wish that he wins. This internal struggle is really exciting, but it does not go too far. So it should be – and It works well for us. ” The fact that the Briton at McLaren after seven races so relaxed look to the future, can go quite well on his cap. Alex Wurz had predicted before the season: “Put it in the first six races Jenson not enough to beat Lewis Hamilton, then his time is up.” That he is now in the World Cup standings ahead of his teammate, would probably hardly anyone expected.

World Cup chances are even buttons for more than a third of the season completely intact. We amount at the end of a title duel with Lewis Hamilton? The 30-year-old dismisses: “You can not safely say that this may be between Lewis and myself will decide so much happen. If they had with Red Bull after the race in Monaco said, they would have expected to walk, because the distance was so great. In Turkey, we have shown that we are equally fast if not faster, although we have to improve in qualifying. ”
Button expects Material Battle for World Cup crown

Also at the Grand Prix of Canada, the McLaren drivers are to assess strong – the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is contrary to the equipped with the F-bay system silver cars. It also knows Button: “We should be here soon. The course is very fast, but that is no place that forgives even the smallest error, because the concrete walls are so close. That is why this weekend, always unpredictable.”
(MotorSportsTotal)