Pirelli not to be blamed for tyre test row: Ecclestone

With Mercedes and Pirelli preparing to face the International tribunal with regard to the tyre test issue, the CEO of Formula One Management and Formula One Administration- Bernie Ecclestone – has extended his support to the tyre manufactures.

Both Pirelli and Mercedes will have to appear before the FIA’s tribunal for an alleged breach of regulations after Mercedes conducted a tyre test with Pirelli using a 2013 car.

While both the parties were met with protests from other teams, Ecclestone believes that if there is any blame to be imparted, it should fall on Mercedes and Mercedes alone. He is of the opinion that Pirelli doesn’t have to answer to anybody as they haven’t done anything wrong .

“Wait until the tribunal, they’ve got all the facts,” Ecclestone was quoted as saying during an interview with Adam Cooper’s F1 Blog. “If you offer me stolen goods, it’s up to me to decide whether I want to accept them or not. It’s not up to anyone to tell me what I should do. I should know what I should do.”

“Pirelli were doing the right thing, obviously. They couldn’t get out of a tyre problem, if there had been proper testing, which there should be, they wouldn’t be in this problem. It’s only because there’s no proper testing that they’re in this problem. As people have been complaining, the obvious thing to do was to get out of it by testing. And they asked.”

Source: ESPN F1