Kevin Magnussen has questioned the motives of those calling for the 2019 tyre specification to be used again next season.
Initial feedback was largely negative on the proposed Pirelli product for 2020 when a prototype was given to test during Friday practice at the United States GP.
Since then, teams also had two days of testing in Abu Dhabi following the race weekend to compare the two tyres and a final vote on the matter is expected on Monday.
When asked about the criticism, however, Magnussen suggests the suitability of the product was not the motivating factor.
“I think it’s very difficult to take the opinion of the drivers and the teams because everyone will just say what looks like their advantage and go for what they think is best for themselves,” the Haas man claimed.
“At the end of the day, it’s the same tyre for everyone. So, F1 should go with the tyre that makes the best show. That’s it.”
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Of course, Magnussen too might be a little bias against the idea of retaining the 2019 rubber as Haas were one of the teams who struggled most to adapt to its characteristics.
As for Pirelli, a rejection of their product would also not be great PR, however, motorsport boss Mario Isola isn’t too concerned.
“If there is this decision based on technical evidence that the 2019 tyre for any reason is working better than 2020, then we have no issues in keeping the 2019 tyre because it’s a good product,” he explained.
“So there is no reason to be against this decision.
“But obviously, we need to understand why we needed one year of testing and then we have a different result. That’s important for the future.”
Isola then went on to explain…
“The [Austin] test was not representative for a number of reasons. Not only the [cold] weather conditions but also the fact that during the race weekend obviously, nobody at the time could optimise the setup of the car and the new construction is changing a little bit the balance,” he suggested.
“The profile of the tyre is different. So they have also to work around the aero package in order to optimise the aero package, and if you lose downforce, obviously the level of grip is lower.
“The new construction is also designed to work at a different pressure because to avoid increasing the pressure [as a consequence of car improvement], we need to design a tyre that has a higher resistance. So it has higher integrity resistance.
“The new construction has to be used in a different way. It is clear that when you have something new, it takes a bit of time to understand the tyre and to extract the maximum performance from it.
“This happens every year. Last year, teams were a bit against the new 2019 construction, but at the end of the day, it was an improvement because this year we had much less blistering, the compounds were spaced in the right way and degradation was not very high.”