Hamilton warns F1 against ‘dangerous, pointless excercise’

F1, the FIA and Pirelli are pushing to outlaw tyre warming equipment to help reduce costs and meet the world championship’s aim to be net zero carbon by 2030. 

But seven-time world champion Hamilton, who is among the drivers to have tested the 2024 slick tyres, has raised fears about safety concerns. 

“I think it’s dangerous,” Hamilton said during F1 pre-season testing in Bahrain. 

“I’ve tested the no blankets, and there is going to be an incident at some stage. So, I think it is the wrong decision.  

“You have to drive multiple laps to get the tyres to work. The whole argument is that taking away the blankets is going more sustainable and more green, but in actual fact we just burn more fuel to get the temperature into the tyres.  

“The more concern is when you go out: you are skating around and it is very twitchy. If someone else is on tyres that are working, you can easily collide with them. So, it is a pointless exercise.” 

Hamilton is not the only driver to have questioned the plan. 

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz said: “I still don’t understand why F1 are moving away from blankets, because for me it makes no sense. 

“You are burning more fuel, more tyres. Even on sustainability, I just don’t understand the philosophy. Also there are risks with these lower ride height cars.

“But it is a direction that F1, the FIA and Pirelli have decided to take, so we need to adapt I guess.”

The sport’s major players are set to hold a crunch vote on whether the proposal should go ahead or not after this year’s British Grand Prix in July. 

Responding to Hamilton’s concerns, Pirelli boss Mario Isola stressed: “Lewis tested the tyres in Paul Ricard at the beginning of February. 

“It was quite cold in that period and clearly we tested some tyres that are not the final version of the tyres that we want to homologate without blankets.

“The idea to remove blankets is something that we discussed years ago and it is a common thought between the FIA, F1, teams, Pirelli and promoters to achieve carbon neutrality for 2030.

“Any step to make our sport more sustainable is important and one of these steps is to remove blankets, to avoid using electricity to warm up the tyre before we use it.

“We tested before the Christmas break some wet weather tires, that was also our priority because last year, drivers were not happy about where they were on tyres. We found a new compound that is able to work without blankets.

“We made a comparison with the old tyre with blankets in cold conditions and in all the three different circuits with three different teams and, if I’m not wrong, the five different drivers, the comments were positive.”