Lammers knows what caused Red Bull's tyre problem: 'That's why less data'

Red Bull Racing lost the race at Austria due to tyre wear. Max Verstappen could not respond to the pace of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. However, Dutch former F1 driver Jan Lammers thinks it is too easy to blame tyre supplier Pirelli.

At times Verstappen seemed a little faster than the Ferraris, but his speed quickly dropped each time due to the wear of his Pirelli rubber. Red Bull chiefs Helmut Marko and Christian Horner, as well as Verstappen himself, were critical of the tyre problems. They were especially critical of themselves, as the team did not have a good understanding of the tyre wear at the Red Bull Ring.

Lammers knows why Red Bull had tyre problems

In the Formula 1 podcast of the Dutch NOS, former F1 driver Jan Lammers thinks he knows why the team had no insight into the wear of the rubber: "It is a sprint race weekend. You have a Friday morning where you have a lot to do, there are formalities to tick off. The second practice session is also qualifying. Then you can't sort anything out." Lammers goes on to explain that the training session that is the next day before the sprint race does give some time to practice the long runs, but that time is mainly spent preparing for the sprint race that afternoon.

Lammers' conclusion is that teams are missing crucial data because of this. I'm not so convinced by those comments that Pirelli is always wrong," says Lammers. That is not the case. I never see people just doing what Pirelli says." Lammers describes the race as a moving target that is impossible to predict by Pirelli. According to the Dutchman, Pirelli's projections are only made for a standard race without yellow or red flags and safety cars. Lammers jumps on the bandwagon for Pirelli and ultimately puts the blame on the teams (in this case Red Bull): "They got into the situation where they weren't going to make it in the normal way anymore. So they changed the strategy. If it was one long race, I am convinced that a one-stop with a yellow tyre and a white tyre was just a fine strategy."