Sunday’s race at the Melbourne Park street circuit was chaotic to say the least. The red flag was waved no fewer than three times, and a total of eight DNFs were recorded. McLaren driver Lando Norris publicly criticizes tire supplier Pirelli; according to the British youngster, the chaotic restart on lap 57 of the Grand Prix in Melbourne was partly due to poor quality tyres.
The chaos of lap 57 all started with Haas driver Kevin Magnussen. The Danish driver hit the wall at turn 2 with his right rear tire, prompting race control to wave the red flag. The restart was then even more chaotic than Magnussen’s incident; Fernando Alonso was spun by Carlos Sainz, both Alpine drivers crashed into each other and rookie Nyck de Vries was knocked off the track by fellow novice Logan Sargeant. According to Lando Norris, the chaos is not surprising, because according to the McLaren driver, something was not quite right with the Pirelli tires.
“We have a soft tire compound that is 65 degrees, and I can’t even describe how little grip there is on the track. The temperature is not wrong, but the point is that the tires, when they are at that temperature, are not good on I can’t even describe how bad the grip is, which is why you saw everyone in Turn 1 slam on the brakes and go straight ahead, there was literally no grip, so you had to brake very early, which then creates chaos and incidents. ”
“We need tires that give us grip, tires that actually belong under a Formula 1 car. On a day like today, it was terrible,” Norris describes the feeling after the race.
