Button Wants Better F1 Tires for Christmas

If Jenson Button could make one improvement in Formula 1 for the 2013 season it would be Pirelli tires with longer peak performance. Unfortunately, the Brit believes that Pirelli and FIA are pushing for the exact opposite.

"As a lot of teams have, we've struggled to get it working and in the right region, and there just needs to be a bigger band of working range for everyone," said Button.

The new Pirelli tires had such unpredictable performance that it was partially responsible for having such unpredictable results in the 2012 season. If the tires were driven too hard, they would overheat and degrade very quickly. Drivers had to learn save tires for later in a stint to have enough performance left to pass. 

Button wishes that Pirelli and the FIA would build the tires with longer peak performance intervals, and he believes that some of the unpredictability early in the season was more a result of luck than skill. 

"Some guys luck in to the tires with their car at the start of the year and others luck out," he said. 

At the end of the season, especially at the US Grand Prix, Pirelli went the opposite direction and began offering tires with very low degradation, which lead to one-stop strategies. 

"The new asphalt has changed things in terms of one stop, which worked in the USA, but not at others which were not so exciting," he said.

Button believes that the FIA and Pirelli will create tires with even shorter optimal performance windows next season because it lends more uncertainty to the championship. 

"I think Pirelli and the FIA are all pushing for more degradation," said Button. 

Source: Autosport