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What a Bad Moment for Formula 1 to Extend the Contract with Pirelli
Not that the decision is any good in itself, considering how much of a limiting factor these tyres are, restricting how much the drivers can push so badly and having such a narrow operating window, but it looks really bad for Formula 1 to apparently agree to extend the deal with Pirelli until 2028, or at least until 2027, during a race weekend when changes and restrictions were imposed because the tyres couldn’t handle the demands of the track, in a development that undoubtedly reminds people of the 2005 United States Grand Prix, even more so when the competitor was Bridgestone. Admittedly, at this point this is something that leaked to the press, not an official announcement, but the most reputable sources were confident enough to publish it, so things would probably look even worse if it won’t be swiftly confirmed, since it’d quite clearly indicate that the original decision was changed, or at least delayed, just because of this mess.
Of course, this also serves to bring back into discussion the layout of these “modern” circuits, with those wide areas where the drivers can go off, the higher curbs and the artificial track limits that are imposed as a result and all of the penalties that result from that, instead of having walls or at least grass and gravel traps that make such mistakes carry real costs and do away with these artificial measures. But that’s a different topic, for another time.