Red flags a possibility as “deep cuts” found in tyres after sprint qualifying

The varying fates of the championship contenders dominated the headlines after qualifying for the Formula 1 sprint in Qatar as Oscar Piastri annexed pole while Lando Norris could do no better than third and Max Verstappen’s bouncing Red Bull consigned him to sixth.

Behind the scenes there was a more disturbing technical development as F1’s tyre supplier identified serious damage caused by gravel being drawn onto the track. Pirelli and the FIA will be monitoring the situation as the weekend evolves in case potential safety issues arise.

“We had several cuts on the treads, all the corners [of the cars] affected,” said Pirelli chief engineer Simone Berra.

“This is mainly due to the gravel traps we have here. The circuit added also three or four strips compared with last year and obviously the drivers, when they are pushing to the limit, they are bringing some gravel onto the race line and we have seen some quite deep gravel cuts.

“Some of them were very deep.”

Cuts and punctures are of particular concern at this circuit given the high cornering speeds. The tyres are under significant duress because of the high cornering loads, hence the specification of tyres at the harder end of the spectrum.

Owing to the high wear observed on tyres used in last year’s race, Pirelli has also imposed a 25-lap limit per set this weekend. This does not mean sets are discarded once used; in the 19-lap sprint race, for instance, it’s likely most teams who made it through the first phase of qualifying will re-use the sets they ran in SQ2. Mercedes, whose drivers only completed one run in SQ1, could re-use the sets they ran in that session without exceeding the limit.

Another consequence of the Qatar circuit’s high-speed layout is the need to physically deter drivers from taking liberties with track limits. The initial solution was to build steep ridges into the kerbs but the sharp crowns on their inner edges damaged the sidewalls of tyres riding over them.

Ahead of last year’s race weekend, the organisers ‘shaved’ the top faces of these kerbs to remove these sharp edges and strategically placed slim gravel traps at the kerb boundaries of critical corners. When this appeared to be a workable solution they added further gravel strips at the exits of Turns 6 and 10, the tightest corners on the track, as well as Turn 16, which leads onto the main straight.

The gravel strip at Turn 14, the final segment of a combination of fast right-handers, was extended to start earlier since this is an area where drivers try to carry maximum speed and the tiniest error can send the car up the kerb.

“It [the gravel] is quite sharp because it generated these cuts quite easily and, yeah, it seems sharp or sharper than [at] other circuits,” said Berra.

“I’ve seen a couple of cuts that were quite deep, so they reached the construction.

“They didn’t cut any cords luckily, but obviously if you expose the construction and you pass continuously on this gravel then you can risk to have a puncture. So in qualifying, sprint qualifying sessions, drivers are going through the limit much more than during the sprint and the race.

“They stay a bit more on track during races, so it could be less of a concern during the sprint and Sunday during the race. But obviously, we want to keep our eyes open also on this matter.” 

The question of having gravel traps versus asphalt run-offs has been a vexing one for the past three decades. In the tenure of Bernie Ecclestone as commercial rights holder, there was a push towards asphalt, chiefly because cars that became beached in the gravel were eliminated from the race, and having fewer cars running on track was deemed deleterious to the spectacle.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

Tracks that hosted motorcycle racing – Qatar’s was originally built for this purpose – were also keen to see the back of gravel traps because of their tendency to add to the violence of riders being parted from their mounts, rather than subtracting from it, as evinced by the accident that left Wayne Rainey a paraplegic.

But asphalt requires more run-off real estate, meaning spectator areas have to be pushed back, and the relative absence of consequences for going off-track encourages drivers to take more risks.

For these reasons, F1 drivers are vexatiously inconsistent in their attitude towards gravel run-offs, on the one hand calling for gravel when they see rivals take liberties with asphalt run-offs, on the other complaining when their own laps are compromised by gravel drawn onto the track surface.

In Qatar, Haas driver Oliver Bearman was one such.

“For me the issue was on the final lap I was behind someone who just kept going off, so I had a lot of debris on track, gravel, which is really mainly an issue of the track,” he said after being knocked out in SQ2. 

“You know a lot of us are complaining about the gravel, it’s not the best way in our opinion to solve things because we end up with what we have – which is basically gravel everywhere, damaging tyres and ruining laps.”

It is impossible to please all of the people all of the time, so these gravel strips are a compromise with which the competitors must live when visiting this venue – along with all the potential outcomes this entails, which could include safety car deployments or even race stoppages so gravel can be cleared.

“At the moment we are not, let’s say, concerned,” said Berra. “But we need to take into account any possible implication during a sprint or during a race if the situation can create some issues on the tyre or some punctures potentially.

“Obviously FIA also will monitor the situation in terms of gravel on track and they can possibly use a red flag or a safety car to clean the track.”

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– The Autosport.com Team