New tyre rules to cut costs
Paris, Saturday: The FIA has announced new tyre regulations, effective from 2009, that they hope will drastically cut costs both for Formula One teams and for the tyre supplier, Bridgestone.
Previously as many as seven sets of dry tyres could be used by each car on a Grand Prix weekend. “That’s twenty-eight tyres per car, per weekend, which means that over a season over 5,000 tyres get used by F1 teams. And each tyre, no matter how much or little it has been used, is thrown into the furnace at the end of each race. We consider this a horrendous waste of both energy and money,” FIA President Max Mosley told reporters.
Tyred: Max Mosley
“What we are proposing is to curtail the number of tyres used by each car every weekend, by cutting the limit to three.
“No, not three sets,” Mosley continued, “just three tyres. This will not only save money, but it should improve the show as we see which team can innovate their way around the new regulations the best, and which drivers are the best at coping with a car that only has three tyres on it.”
Concerns that Bridgestone may have to redesign its tyres to make them more durable in the wake of the new rules were dismissed by Mosley. “What we are also proposing is a massive ‘tyre freeze,’ in which Bridgestone cannot make any new developments to their standard tyre for the next ten years. So basically it’s no different from what they are doing at the moment.”
The Formula One Teams’ Association has yet to comment on the proposals.
