The 2020 spat forcing F1 to break its own rules

As the debate over the 2021 Formula 1 regulations drags on towards the October 31 deadline, a much more pressing matter remains unresolved.

Right now, deep into a season where many feel the competitive balance has been skewed by a change of tyre specification, no one knows exactly what Pirelli will be supplying in 2020 - a season now just months away, and for which car designs are increasingly advanced.

In typical F1 style, the teams are pushing in different directions, the FIA and F1 are doing their best to referee a complex situation, and Pirelli finds itself being flipped back and forth like a pinball zinging around a machine in a Milanese bar.

Consider this simple timeline. On Thursday September 12, Mercedes will take part in what is supposed to be the final signing-off test for the 2020 Pirelli tyres, prior to that definitive specification being used by all 10 teams in the Abu Dhabi test in December - after which they must chose their sets for the early races of next season.

And yet on the very day that Esteban Ocon is driving around Paul Ricard on Pirelli testing duty - Thursday - the team bosses, the FIA, F1 and Pirelli will be in Geneva debating exactly what's required from those 2020 tyres, and whether some extra last-minute testing should be added to an already busy end of season.

Given that Pirelli also had a legal and regulatory requirement to formally define the final construction of the 2020 tyres by September 1 - a deadline it was forced to miss due to the uncertainty over what is actually wanted - it is a truly absurd situation.

When you consider how important tyres are to current form in F1, with Ferrari and Red Bull suggesting that the 2019 spec gave Mercedes a significant advantage, the final result of this row will be hugely significant to the outcome of the '20 championship.

The whole episode is also a snapshot of the bigger picture of how teams inevitably and invariably push for their own interests. Even more of that will be seen as the 2021 rules are defined by the tug of war between them, the FIA and Liberty in the coming weeks.

To put the current saga into context, recall the issues with overheating that became a talking point last year, and which were addressed for some high-speed circuits such as Silverstone by the introduction of thinner-tread tyres.

That thinner tread in turn became the standard construction for the whole of 2019. Alone among the top teams, Mercedes hit the ground running this year and had a good understanding of how best to use the revised tyres, while Ferrari and Red Bull initially struggled to come to terms.

The formal deadline for Pirelli to define the construction quietly passed on September 1, and there was then more debate over what was wanted from the 2020 tyres

Momentum began to gather among those who were not happy for a proposed change back, for the last part of this season, to the 2018 thicker tread tyres. That culminated in a meeting in Austria where the subject was debated, with Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton in attendance.

Given the dominance of Mercedes up to that point of the season, Liberty and the FIA were understandably open to such a discussion, if closer racing later in the year was the potential outcome.

That day, the teams agreed that a wider operating window with less degradation would be desirable, and that those with less downforce should not be penalised by an inability to get their tyres working.

But a vote on a return to 2018 tyres produced a 50:50 split. Ferrari and Red Bull, joined by their associated teams (Toro Rosso, Haas and Alfa Romeo) were for it, while Mercedes, McLaren, Williams, Renault and Racing Point all voted against.

The focus turned instead to making changes for 2020, and that meant a new target letter had to be composed making clear exactly what was wanted from the next generation tyres - and its requirements had to be fed back into Pirelli's ongoing test programme.

As with every year, Pirelli had been quietly developing its products, with each team getting a couple of days of blind test running. The company always had to adjust its rubber to what it believes will be the downforce levels of the following year.

This time a wider working range and less overheating had also been requested of it some months ago, so that was factored into the testing.

Then the push for less degradation was a late spanner in the works. The idea gathered momentum at other meetings on the basis that it would allow drivers to race harder for longer. Hamilton's performance at Silverstone - where he set fastest lap on old tyres right at the end - was the best possible PR for the concept.

The problem Pirelli faced was that most of its 2020 testing was held early in '19, and by the time the target letter was supposed to be finalised, around the time of the Hungarian GP in early August, it had just the upcoming September 12-13 test with Mercedes left to develop the definitive '20 tyres.

That one-shot test was already going to be stressful. But, to add to the complexity, teams then spent August (with the summer break in the middle) pondering the target letter, and their feedback came back late.

The formal deadline for Pirelli to define the construction quietly passed on September 1, and there was more debate over what was wanted from the 2020 tyres at an F1 technical working group meeting two days later.

Over the Monza weekend, the discussion returned to team boss level. With the target letter still in a state of flux, and this week's Mercedes test approaching fast, Pirelli made it clear that it wanted some extra testing in early October.

That opened up a whole new can of worms. The tyre testing schedule was set in stone at the start of this year, and to add extra running at this stage requires unanimous support from the teams, as well as FIA approval.

One or two teams were potentially going to get the chance to do some extra in-season testing, and only a few - the big ones, obviously - had the resources to fit it in around the busy flyaway race schedule. It would, as usual, be blind as far as the tyres were concerned, but still handy for putting miles on a new engine spec or another aero package.

Pirelli admits that the spec could indeed stay unchanged for next year, because time has run out

That's the debate the team bosses held at Monza as they considered if the team or teams selected to do the test would gain an advantage. In the end, they didn't unanimously agree to allow it, with Williams in particular understood to be strongly against it being held.

The discussion is set to be revived at Thursday's meeting in Geneva, where not just the extra testing but what's required from the tyres will again be debated. There's also an option built into the rules for Pirelli to provide extra sets of prototype 2020 tyres to be tested by all teams during Friday practice on race weekends.

"We are going to discuss in Geneva on Thursday a number of topics related to tyres," says Pirelli F1 boss Mario Isola. "I'll be part of the discussion so we'll explain exactly what we are doing, and what we can achieve, and what we can do. At least we have the opportunity to explain what is going on, on our side."

Isola makes it clear that extra testing will be necessary if the goalposts move again on Thursday and the tyres Pirelli currently believes will be the definitive 2020 product suddenly no longer match what is required.

"We started the discussion on targets quite late in the year, and we had already started our development," he adds. "So if we want to achieve something that is different compared to what we have now, we have also to consider an extra test.

"If the idea is to continue the development we need to consider a proper development test with different prototypes. It has to be beginning of October, because then there is no time, we are very late."

And that timing could play into the hands of those who don't want to see change because they are happy with the status quo. It was interesting to hear Mercedes boss Toto Wolff suggest at Monza that as the clock runs down, sticking with 2019 tyres looks ever more likely.

"It seems that everything is going to stay pretty stable, at least for 2020," Wolff noted. "There's no appetite from some teams to allow Pirelli more time to develop the tyre, for understandable reasons, and therefore I think '20 is going to stay pretty stable."

A cynic might suggest that Mercedes has done the best job on the 2019 tyres and therefore has most to gain with a status quo. But Pirelli also admits that the spec could indeed stay unchanged for next year, because time has run out.

"This is an option," says Isola. "Because we have a tyre that is safe and working well and so on. This is a safe option. It's a bit strange because during the last couple of meetings the general feeling was that they needed a different tyre, with low degradation.

"Everybody knows how the current tyre works. If they want something different, we need the tools to develop something different. Otherwise we can accept to stay on the current product, because it's something we can use, but on the other side they have to accept the performance of the current product. It's their choice."

The fact that the regulatory and contractual September 1 deadline for defining a new construction has been missed also gives ammunition to those who don't want change.

"Obviously if we have to freeze the construction now the only solution is to freeze the current one," says Isola. "If we postpone until the end of September we can also consider the development done so far. If we have to develop new solutions, then we have to postpone to end of October.

"If the decision is to have the data now, they already have everything. We don't need to give them any data because all the data on the construction is available since last year. We are breaking the rules and not breaking the rules..."

Perhaps the overall desire for change isn't quite a strong as it was a couple of months ago. Since that crunch meeting in Austria, on the back of a run of Mercedes wins, Red Bull and Ferrari have between them won four of the last six races.

Other factors have played a part - the Mercedes-sapping heat in Austria, rain in Germany, the low downforce nature of Belgium and Italy - but the fact is the racing has been much closer, and talk of tyres favouring some teams has quietened.

"As I said a few months ago, 'We'll see in the second half of the season that all the teams are learning how to use the tyres'," says Isola. "Sometimes teams that are not happy in the first half of the season are happy in the second half. Again, we are just trying our best to supply a tyre that is in line with the expectation. It's important that we agree on the expectations."

Pirelli finds itself in a difficult situation. It was asked to make different tyres for 2020 and it wants to do so, but the details were up for debate, time has ticked away, it needs the full support of the teams to do more testing - and that has not been forthcoming. At the very same time it is embarking on the even more complex challenge of developing the 18-inch tyres for 2021.

Some teams do at least see the bigger picture, acknowledging that Pirelli needs support - especially with the extra testing.

"Globally, we are complaining about the tyres, some teams more than others," says Alfa Romeo's Fred Vasseur. "And we made a target letter for Pirelli. For sure they want to react, but it was short-term notice. We sent the target letter one month ago, and they have to produce the tyres for Abu Dhabi.

"We have to be supportive with them. But we have to consider on the other hand that we have to do it in a fair way, not to help one team too much. If we want to test the tyres, it will be around October perhaps, and the majority of the teams don't have the resources to do a session in Europe. It's sure that we're not able to do it.

"But I will be on the supportive side, if it's done in a fair way. My concern is that we need to have the tyres to test in Abu Dhabi, because then we have the choice for the first races."

"We can't be harsh on one supplier and not give him the opportunity to improve his product. We just need to show something that's not always happening in F1 - a bit of solidarity" Cyril Abiteboul

Renault holds a similar view to Alfa, and agrees that Pirelli has been given a difficult job.

"We know that Pirelli needs more test time," says Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul. "It's important that we need to find a way to do it, to support them, but also in a way that's fair to all competitors. We are in Suzuka in October, so it's a bit difficult to be in Suzuka, and to be testing in Europe at the same time. We are going to see if we can make it in a fair way, maybe using FP1 time.

"It's a bit of a frustrating situation, but right now we need to be able to come together to support Pirelli so that we have a product that is spectacular, safe and appropriate for F1. We need to have certainty that we're embarking on something that will improve the situation and will be better.

"If we're going through the pain and process of more testing and discussing FP1 tests and so on for a product that's not better, and that's not even guaranteed from a safety perspective, there is no point. We've all complained that we should try to improve the tyre so the least we can do is try and see how we can support Pirelli to provide a better tyre."

Abiteboul's focus on safety is significant. Sebastien Buemi had a huge accident in a Red Bull at Silverstone in July while running 2020 Pirelli prototypes, and one team boss said at Monza that incident has played a role in recent discussions and made rushed change less appealing.

"Pirelli are like us," says Abiteboul. "They are struggling with the lack of testing opportunities, and I can understand. Just like us when we can't test our engine. That's product development, and we need to reflect that.

"At the same time we can't be harsh on one supplier and not give him the opportunity to improve his product. I've been on that side of the road when supplying engines. We just need to show something that's not always happening in F1, which is a bit of solidarity."

As Abiteboul says, finding such solidarity is not the F1 way. It's every man for himself.

"Some teams are convinced that they have a good understanding," says Vasseur. "So they want to change nothing. Some are convinced that the others are doing a better job, and they want to change everything. This is the life of F1.

"We don't have to react depending on positions on Saturday afternoons. If you are leading you want to change nothing, if you are not, you want to change everything. Let's stay a bit calm."

So, does Isola feel like the aforementioned pinball, being bouncing around while trying to please everybody?

"Since 2011!" he smiles. "It's a normal situation where teams are trying to maximise what they feel is better for them. We are in a competitive environment, and it's clear that teams are trying to get what they believe is the best for each one."