The FIA was left concerned over tyre wear at the Losail International Circuit following Friday's practice session; an extra 10-minute session will take place on Saturday; watch the Sprint Shootout live on Sky Sports F1 at 2pm on Saturday before the Sprint at 6.30pm
Saturday 7 October 2023 15:59, UK
The FIA has announced that all drivers could be obliged to make at least three pit stops during Sunday's Qatar Grand Prix amid "safety" concerns over tyre wear.
Following analysis of the tyres used on Friday in what was meant to be the sole practice session of the Sprint event, there were concerns from manufacturer Pirelli over the impact the Losail International Circuit's 'pyramid' kerbs are having.
In an attempt to reduce the impact, track limits at Turns 12-13 have been revised, and an extra 10-minute 'practice familiarisation' ahead of the Sprint Shootout on Saturday has been added to allow drivers time to adjust to the changes.
Depending on the results of the analysis from the 19-lap Sprint later on Saturday, the FIA says it could enforce a three pit stop rule for Sunday's 57-lap race, along with a maximum limit of 20 full laps run on any single new set of tyres.
An FIA statement, released little more than three hours before the scheduled start of the Sprint Shootout, said: "Following the standard analysis of tyres used during Free Practice 1 yesterday, in which tyres that have been used for approximately 20 laps are examined by Pirelli to check various safety parameters, a separation in the sidewall between the topping compound and the carcass cords on many of the tyres that were checked was discovered.
"It is the view of the FIA and Pirelli that a significant number of additional laps on these tyres could result in circumferential damage of the tyres with subsequent air loss, and tyres analysed with lower lap numbers showed a much-reduced extent of the issue.
"This issue has likely been caused by the high-frequency interference between the tyre sidewall and the 50mm 'pyramid' kerbs used extensively at this circuit, aggravated by the propensity to ride those kerbs."
The situation provides an unwanted sideshow on the day that Max Verstappen is highly likely to secure his third successive world championship.
The Red Bull driver needs just three points, which will be achieved by finishing sixth or above, in the Sprint, to seal the drivers' title.
Questions will be asked as to how the revamped circuit, which is starting a 10-year deal to host F1 having debuted on the sport's calendar in 2021, has failed to overcome issues that saw several cars retire late in that race.
It also remains to be seen how long following the Sprint it will take Pirelli and the FIA to decide on the regulations for Sunday's race.
The FIA added that, along with Pirelli, it would "carry out extensive research and simulations in order to establish with complete confidence the reasons behind this issue, and to work on solutions to avoid it in the future".
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 on Saturday, FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis explained that the event organisers have done nothing wrong with regards to the layout of the Losail International Circuit.
"To be clear, the kerb used is of an FIA specification," Tombazis said. "The track have done a good job to put it together, all of the surfacing, we've got no complaint against the track.
"They've used all the guidelines, but these interactions between tyres and kerbs can be very complicated and can depend on a lot of relatively subtle details, which obviously these indicate that now we need to do more research there to improve the situation further, both from a tyre and a kerb point of view.
"We did consider modifying the kerbs, but in the time we had from very late last night until today, that would not have been possible. It was not one or two single kerbs, it was quite an extent, they would all have had to be filed off, and with very hard concrete that would not have been possible.
"On that basis, the next thing we got was to actually get the cars to stay a bit further away from the kerbs, which is what we've done by changing the white line and so on."
Will Max Verstappen wrap up his third world championship at the first attempt at the Qatar GP? Watch every session of the Sprint weekend live on Sky Sports F1 from October 6-8. Stream F1 on Sky Sports with NOW for £21 a month for six months
