Pirelli explains Verstappen exit: "That seems to have been responsible"
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- GPblog.com
Max Verstappen's Pirelli tyres suddenly broke down in the final phase of the Grand Prix on the Imola circuit. Red Bull Racing hadn't seen the rubber of the tyre supplier degrade so quickly. Mario Isola spoke on behalf of Pirelli with a statement.
Verstappen drove 32 laps with the mediums before the retirement occurred. "It seems that some debris was responsible for it," says top executive Isola in the Italian manufacturer's review.
Nevertheless, Pirelli has to admit that it hadn't quite predicted the strategy and longevity of the tyres. There was, of course, little data available with just one free practice session of only an hour and a half.
Softs are not as strong as expected
The softs did not last as long as initially thought. "Due to some graining seen on the soft, the previously envisaged strategies involving the soft then largely changed in favour of a medium to hard strategy."
However, the men who started on the money compound managed to finish the race with a one-stop. "The mediums showed minimal degradation even over very long stints."
Pirelli goes on to say that many drivers managed more than forty laps on the hard tyres. That's also why Pirelli seems pretty sure that debris was the cause of the failure of Verstappen.