Red Bull did nothing wrong in Baku according to Pirelli: 'Went to the limit'

According to Pirelli both Red Bull Racing and Aston Martin pushed the limit with their tyre pressures in Azerbaijan. Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll probably suffered a blowout at high speed on the streets of Baku because of this.

Pirelli does state that neither team has broken any rules with this. "What happened in Baku is simply that the running conditions expected were different compared to the actual running conditions - and that created the failure," Pirelli boss Mario Isola told Motorsport.com. The Italian explains that due to the reduced pressure and the large amount of energy in the tyres, the cheeks of the tyres get standing waves.

Expected and actual driving conditions did not match

"Standing waves are putting a lot of energy into the inside shoulder of the tyre. And at a certain point, the tyre breaks. That is what happened, and the reason why we had this situation in in Baku," Isola explained. However, this was not the only reason for the blowouts. Pirelli's calculated predictions did not match the actual situation on track.

For each race weekend Pirelli calculates that teams drive with a certain pressure and camber. There is a margin on this, so they are sure the tyre can perform ok. "In that case, we didn't achieve these conditions, not because teams were doing something against the regulations, but because they were looking as usual for performance, and that created a different scenario to what we were expecting," said Isola.

New tyre pressure rules

There is no minimum pressure that the tyres must have says Isola, but that rule is going to change in 2022. Then there will be a standard pressure sensor on the tyres. This is part of the new era that Formula 1 is entering with new cars.