Slicks Unlikely to Return to F1

FIA president Max Mosley believes slick tyres are unlikely to make a return to Formula One, despite recent reports suggesting the teams are about to agree on the change.

Following their meeting last month, the team owners are scheduled to meet again at the beginning of December to further discuss a host of changes to the technical regulations, among them the cancellation of bi-directional telemetry.

Reports this week in the German and Finnish press suggested another proposal now considered is going back to slick tyres. Formula One cars have been racing on grooved tyres since 1998.

However, Mosley today told Atlas F1 the switch back to slicks would not likely happen, as the FIA would require the teams to accept aerodynamics limitations without their unanimous agreement.

"I have said to the teams that we would be quite happy to go back to slicks, wide tyres, wide cars, etc, if we had the right to do whatever we wish to the aerodynamics, with the agreement of 50% of the teams at six months' notice or without any agreement at all at twelve months' notice," the FIA president explained.

"I don't think they will agree, but anything else would make an unacceptable escalation in cornering speeds inevitable."

Currently changes to the technical regulations require a unanimous agreement of the teams. Moreover, Mosley has already iterated in the past that tyres will remain grooved in Formula One for as long as other means of slowing down cars were not agreed on.

"We have got to make sure that the cars don't keep getting faster and faster, with some very competent people trying to make sure they do go faster and faster," Mosley said previously, in an interview with Atlas F1.

"We are always told 'reduce the aerodynamics'. Trouble is we've learned from experience that it never succeeds. For thirty years we've been constantly trying to reduce the aerodynamic potential of the cars to keep the speeds in check and this has failed.

"So if you have a responsible governing body you must have a final point of defence and that for us is the grooved tyres. [...] Grooved tyres were probably the most important contribution to keeping speed and therefore safety under control, and the idea of going back to slicks I think is highly unlikely in Formula One."