Stoddart Questions Safety of Tyre Rules

Paul Stoddart has shaped up against FIA president Max Mosley once again, this time on safety issues relating to the use of one set of tyres for both qualifying sessions and the race for the forthcoming Formula One season.

The tyre decision, one of a raft of changes introduced by the FIA in an effort to reduce speed, has been criticised by a number of drivers and teams.

Mosley, speaking to journalists in London last Friday, denied the criticism: "All these people have only come into Grand Prix racing in the last 10 years and they don't know what they are talking about. We might have an incident, but it is no more likely than when you change tyres."

Stoddart, talking to Australian radio station Sports Entertainment Network at the weekend, fought back.

"This was brought in as a safety regulation - under safety!" said Stoddart. "How on earth can it possibly be more safe to race, instead of having a selection of seven or 10 sets of tyres over the course of the weekend, to have two or three sets, one of which you have to select and do your qualifying and the entire race distance on?"

The largest factor in ever-reducing laptimes over the last few years has been the tyre war between suppliers, a situation Stoddart was keen to point out still exists: "You've still got two ultra-competitive, fantastic tyre companies, Michelin and Bridgestone, competing on the edge all the time.

"Now we're going to say: guys, you're still competing against each other, so there's no possibility of a single compound and a single hard tyre coming in that could undoubtedly do race distances.

"We still want you to be ultra-competitive but, guess what, we're going to take away most of the sets of tyres, so you better make them good enough to last the distance. I'll tell you what; if there is a serious accident, and I sincerely hope there isn't, the person who brought these regulations in will be totally responsible.

"And it wasn't any of the teams."