Pirelli has seen nothing “strange” amid F1 tyre cooling trick intrigue

Pirelli has seen no evidence of anything unusual in how teams are running their tyres amid the latest tech intrigue in F1 over a potential water cooling trick.

Suspicions about several teams potentially having found a way to help cool their tyres in races, by injecting water in to them through the valves, are understood to have erupted after the Singapore Grand Prix.

It is understood that this was prompted by signs of moisture being spotted within wheel rims after the tyres were stripped following the grand prix at the Marina Bay circuit.

The FIA has been pushed by Red Bull to dig into the matter, and its head of single seater matters Nikolas Tombazis is understood to have spoken to Pirelli about it in Brazil as well as have oversight of tyres being stripped after the sprint race at Interlagos.

The official scrutineering report from the sprint race said that all tyres that were inspected after the sprint were compliant with the regulations.

Pirelli itself says that, following its chats with the FIA, it is more than happy to do anything it can to help any probe – but says that initial analysis has not pointed to anything untoward taking place.

Mario Isola, its head of F1 and car racing, said: “I cannot see anything strange from the data we have. I don't have any evidence.

Pirelli tyres

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“Obviously, as I said, it's up to the FIA now to decide what to do and to tell us if we can support, because at the end of the day the only thing we can do is to support them.

“If there is anything we can do to check, or to give them advice on a possible situation, we are here to support.

“I'm not aware of any issue, but I heard the story, and I have also tried to understand why it should be done, which now I have an idea. But for the rest, it's all in the hands of the FIA.”

Isola explained that, in theory, it was quite a simple task to inject water into the tyre - although the physics at play were quite complicated and it was not without a downside in terms of impacting internal pressures.

“How to do that is very easy,” he said. “You have a valve – and you just put water inside.

“But how the system works is a different story. It's basically a thermal effect: heat transfer between the tyre and the rim that should give more consistency or less degradation to the tyre, even if you have worse control of the pressure.

“Obviously, if you have a vapour steam inside the tyre you lose the control of the pressure because you have a pressure that is higher.”

Isola said any team that did inject water into the tyres to help with cooling would be going against an FIA technical directive that was issued a few years ago regarding the treatment of tyres.

“The TD came some years ago when there was a discussion on this,” he said. “There was a discussion also on special gases where it was suggested some teams were changing the gas into the tyre to better control pressure.

“Then someone started to talk about moisture in the tyre, and why we should have more or less.

“We supply the tyres with dry air inside. We have a dryer connected to our system, and they get all the tyres with dry air, as in the regulations.

“In the technical directive, it's written that any modification to this is forbidden, and it's quite clear. But then you have to have a clear evidence if you have a situation like that.”