What the lessons of 2013’s mid-year tyre change mean for F1 2023's dominant team

Its leading V-surnamed star retiring from the front of the British Grand Prix and Sergio Perez exiting with a puncture. That would be quite the shock for Red Bull at Silverstone in seven weeks.

If it avoids losing pole – and therefore most likely victory – in Monaco, perhaps that would be the only way the team gets knocked off what looks like an irresistible run to world title glory, possibly with a new victory record to boot. Mercedes currently hold this accolade with 19 wins from 21 races in 2016.

But that is just what happened in the 2013 British race, albeit when Perez was then racing in his sole season for McLaren and Max Verstappen was still karting. And it’s worth recalling here because a significant moment in the 2023 season has just arrived for the biggest player in that sunny, shocking event nearly a decade ago: Pirelli.

Before Perez’s spectacular exit as Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari bore down running rapidly onto the Hangar straight, three other drivers had already suffered dramatic punctures. Early race leader Lewis Hamilton had the first aboard his first Mercedes while running down the Wellington straight. Then came Felipe Massa’s, causing his Ferrari to spin onto that section, then the same for Jean-Eric Vergne, although on the Hangar straight. It was at this point, Vergne’s Toro Rosso having showered the following Lotus cars with shrapnel, then-race director Charlie Whiting came close to red-flagging proceedings.

This was Pirelli’s nightmare. One it had been so fearing, it’d already asked the FIA to switch back to the tyre constructions it had been running 2012, which were tougher. Once the teams had understood them that year, this led to a series of one-stop affairs F1’s stakeholders were keen to avoid and so new compounds with flexible sidewalls and greater levels of degradation were required. Until they weren’t.

Last week, Pirelli revealed it will introduce a tougher new construction of slick tyre from the 2023 British GP – with the teams getting the chance to test the rubber in practice at the Spanish race that concludes the triple header about to begin. Pirelli opted to act after gathering information suggesting the teams were making such rapid progress in updating their new ground effect machines with higher downforce levels – even around the floor changes required to eliminate porpoising for this year – that they’d already reached what had been predicted for 2023’s close.

Pirelli has acted pre-emptively to ensure that a repeat of the dramatic events at Silverstone in 2013 don't recur this year

Photo by: Patrik Lundin / Motorsport Images

It wanted to act before the high-speed tracks that test F1 tyres so much, such as Silverstone, were reached. The Miami pole lap going down almost two seconds in a year from 1m26.841s to 1m28.796s was cited as the best example of what is happening, but Pirelli also had in-race load data to support its hypothesis.

Unlike what surely now must be said of the problems with the early 2013 rubber, there isn’t a safety concern on the current tyres. Indeed, F1 has long since moved on from the very high degradation races of the years early in Pirelli’s tenure – now in its 13th year. But tyre management is still the ultimate difference between success and failure.

Red Bull’s RB19 is aerodynamically mighty to lead the field even when Charles Leclerc hasn’t thrown away Ferrari’s chance to get amongst Verstappen and Perez in qualifying. But it then treats its tyres so gently while its rivals chomp through their rubber over a race stint, its stable platform reducing the sliding that sends harmful temperature spikes through the tyres.

What Pirelli has announced raises questions about whether that situation will continue from Silverstone onwards. Although tyre chat is far from the most glamorous in a championship associated with such spectacle, performance in this area remains critical. And, other than challenges in managing team-mate harmony, getting things wrong on tyres is the only visible weakness for Red Bull.

While Red Bull will have to adapt alongside its rivals, and this opens it up to possible tyre-related vulnerability, it is unlikely to be the game-changer of 2013

Its only defeats since it lightened the RB18 – other than the 2022 Silverstone race Verstappen was on course to dominate before picking up debris damage – have occurred when Red Bull got its sums wrong on the tyres. Austria and Brazil went to Leclerc and George Russell as a result, while Verstappen lost a wet race he’d have been expected to dominate in Turkey late in 2021 for the same reason.

Back in 2013, Pirelli’s change back to its older, stronger, constructions led to a period of Red Bull dominance not witnessed again until last year. Sebastian Vettel, already the master of those early Adrian Newey-penned legendary designs, could just press on faster, for longer. That is surely the same expectation for all F1 teams with the altered rubber coming for Silverstone.

Pirelli has here acted before concerns over tyre safety even became a question this year. But while Red Bull will have to adapt alongside its rivals, and this opens it up to possible tyre-related vulnerability, it is unlikely to be the game-changer of 2013.

Those changes killed the title battle with Fernando Alonso and Ferrari. Although the Spaniard and his new Aston Martin squad are Red Bull’s closest challengers right now, there is no living title fight between multiple teams to imperil anyway.

Red Bull's tyre management has been superior to its rivals, even when they start ahead as in Baku - this is unlikely to change

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Pirelli is set to stay in the headlines at this weekend’s Imola race. Pre-event concerns regarding torrential rain in the Emilia-Romagna region mean there are even concerns about the race going ahead. But assuming it does, and the forecasts are right, the new tyre blanket-less full wets should see some action.

If qualifying is dry, an experiment will take place where drivers use hards in Q1, mediums in Q2 and softs in Q3. This could well be interesting in its own right, as drivers often struggle for the confidence to push as required straightaway on a new compound, which is why big gains often came late in Q3 when the requirement to start races on Q2-used rubber meant the frontrunners were often switching back from using the mediums. Therefore, a premium on early Q3 pace and mistake-free first runs suddenly become an even more important factor, which is something that caught Verstappen out in Miami.

But Pirelli also hopes this system – a trial driven primarily by sustainability requirements, the manufacturer shipping only 11 sets of dry tyres per car and not 13 as usual for this round – will lead to more race strategy variance. This is because its compound choices for Imola 2023 are a step softer than they were last year, so, with fewer tyres being used in qualifying, teams might be tempted away from safe one-stoppers come Sunday with extra fresh hards and mediums available. Race rain could change all of that anyway.

But the coming slicks construction change is a more notable moment overall for the story of the season because of what happened 10 years ago. In theory, it should play into the hands of those teams struggling more with tyre wear, such as Ferrari. However, there’s also a feeling that Red Bull is holding some performance back anyway and this could simply allow the team to use more of it.

Anyone pinning hopes on this dramatically altering 2023’s tale should instead remain realistic.

Pirelli's new construction seems unlikely to have too great an impact on the competitive order

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images