A brand new approach of allocating wet-weather rubber for 2024 meant groups had been reluctant to make use of any intermediate tyres in Suzuka’s damp FP2 session as a result of they wished to avoid wasting them for later within the weekend.
It meant that drivers sat in garages for many of the session, with the one main working coming very late on when circumstances had been dry sufficient for slicks.
The dearth of motion left followers annoyed and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton bemoaned new laws having triggered the scenario.
“It’s disgrace we did not get that session,” he stated about FP2. “They’ve modified the tyre rule, so due to this fact nobody goes out and runs on the intermediate, which simply does not make sense, actually. However there you go.”
The scenario Hamilton was referring to is tweaks made to the F1 sporting laws over the winter that had been initially geared toward rising the allocation of rain tyres for all groups.
As an alternative of 4 units of intermediates and two units of full wets as they received in 2023, groups are actually allowed 5 inters and three wets per grand prix weekend.
Nevertheless, as a part of the deal agreed to permit this additional set, a rule that gave groups a free set of tyres on moist Fridays was eliminated.
Beforehand, at occasions the place there was no dash race scheduled, if both of the 2 Friday observe classes had been declared moist, then an extra set of intermediates could be made accessible to any driver who used that compound within the session.
This successfully meant there was a free tyre set accessible, and it inspired groups to run within the session as a result of there was no draw back to including life to the inter.
Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-24
Picture by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Now, nonetheless, burning by way of an intermediate might go away groups uncovered to not having pretty much as good a tyre allocation as rivals who’ve saved units if qualifying or/and the race are moist – which is why so few drivers ran with inters at Suzuka.
Pirelli’s chief engineer Simone Berra stated the rule change was not one thing the producer had had any affect over, and it was apparent the way it had contributed to what occurred in Japan on Friday.
“This [rule change] was clearly voted by all of the groups along with FIA and F1,” stated Berra.
“Clearly these days a crew does not must return one set of intermediates after it’s utilized in free observe, prefer it was final yr. So particularly at this circuit, the place you’ve, as an instance, a excessive degree of degradation, and contemplating that we might have some rain on Sunday, most of them determined to maintain the 5 units unused other than RB and different groups that did an out- and in-lap.
“It’s one thing that we’ll talk about additional with the FIA and with the groups, to attempt to discover a solution to make them run in observe. It isn’t our choice in the long run, however within the subsequent weeks it is going to be a subject for dialogue.”
Berra believed a easy tweak might work in encouraging groups to run in damp observe session: making it necessary that each one groups needed to return one set of intermediates after a session that has been declared moist.
“They’ll maintain the 5 units from the beginning however, if a session is said moist, then you need to return one set of intermediates,” he defined.
“It then is mindless to not use it and [instead] return a brand new set. In order that will likely be a solution to encourage them to run.”
