Pirelli's tyre approach is conservative: Alan Permane

Lotus trackside operations director Alan Permane has come down heavily on Pirelli’s tyre compounds for the next three races as he considers Pirelli’s approach too “conservative” for his taste.

Pirelli is slated to supply the hardest selection available from both the medium and hard compound tyres for the British and Hungarian Grand Prix.

This selection has been made in spite of the last year’s pairing of soft tyre with the hard at Silverstone, and the medium and soft compounds at Hungary.

Even though Pirelli has manufactured the softest range of the year, Permane believes that Pirelli’s choice for Hungary, especially, has been a mistake.

“It’s unusual to take the same tyres to Hungary as to Bahrain and Silverstone,” Permane told the BBC. “We didn’t have those tyres last year. We had medium and soft last year and people did two stops. So it absolutely doesn’t make sense – they’re too hard for that track.”

Permane expressed his disappointment at Pirelli for not following through their stated aims by playing it safe, and also added that this will still affect the championship one way or another.

“They went softer to try to encourage more pit stops. There’s no point in them going softer with the tyres if they’re just going to take different harder tyres everywhere. This is exactly what they did in the last few races of last year. They brought harder and harder tyres and we just ended up doing one stop,” he said.

Source: ESPN F1