The FIA, Formula 1 teams and Pirelli will discuss the possibility of switching back to 2018-spec tyres from the Belgian Grand Prix on Friday.
This year’s tyres have been a hot-button topic throughout with many teams struggling to adapt to a thinner-treaded design that was introduced initially last year and permanently for 2019.
However, in recent weeks, the talk has ramped up with Red Bull suggesting the tyres were ‘tailor-made’ for Mercedes and claimed every other team would be in favour of returning to last season’s specification.
And now the FIA will hold a meeting to decide if there is enough support for switching spec, a move that would take place at Spa-Francorchamps in September.
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To get the motion through, seven of the 10 teams would have to agree and sources quoted by F1i.com claim Ferrari, Haas, Red Bull and Toro Rosso have already confirmed they would back the move while McLaren and Mercedes would not.
“It’s pretty logical that the ones that will feel that they haven’t understood the tyre properly will try to trigger change,” Mercedes boss Toto Wolff recently said on the topic.
“[But] I don’t think F1 should change the rules because some are doing better than others.
“I don’t mean in an arrogant way, we have given it a big push over the winter to get on top of our set-up issues and understand how the tyres functioned last year.”