Pirelli to discuss Q3 tyre-saving issue with FOTA in Korea

The Italian tyre manufacturer is unhappy that the spectacle of Q3 is being lessened by cars at the back end of the top ten choosing not to run so they can save tyres for the race.

In Japan, four cars failed to complete timed laps so they could start the race on fresh rubber - which led to criticism from Pirelli, team bosses and F1 fans.

Having written to FOTA on the back of comments from several team principals that the situation needed looking at, Hembery has pencilled in talks with FOTA for the Korea weekend to try and make progress.

"Something needs to happen," Hembery told AUTOSPORT. "I am going to have a sit down with Oliver [Weingarten] from FOTA, and the Sporting Working Group, in Korea this week, and we will have a formal meeting in India about the whole thing.

"We need to come up with some proposals. We have some ideas and we have to try and find a common ground to how we solve it."

Pirelli has toyed with the idea of qualifying tyres to solve the problem, but such a move was rejected by F1 teams.

Now, Hembery says, the focus will be on tweaking the sporting regulations to ensure there is no benefit to cars skipping Q3. One solution could be that those cars that sit out the final session of qualifying will have to start the race on the same set of tyres that they used in Q2.

"You can solve it instantly by regulation change without increasing costs or anything, so we will have proposals for that," added Hembery. "That might be what we need to do next year and, maybe for 2013, move towards something different just to give the sport something new.

"There is nothing too wrong with the qualifying. This three session system is very good: it is just that conserving tyres is nonsense. And it is nonsense because if [Sebastian] Vettel and the top six can win races having gone through the three sessions, then it means everyone can do it.

"It is nonsense; you don't need to conserve your tyres. You have enough to do the whole race anyway. We are happy to go through with whatever we can to solve it."