Lewis Hamilton wants Racier Tires from Pirelli

Spanish Grand Prix winner Lewis Hamilton believes that F1 tire supplier, Pirelli, should bring more ‘racier’ tires to each weekend.

The reigning world champion won his second race of the 2018 season in Spain, last weekend. Hamilton took advantage of a one-stop strategy and won by a margin of 20 seconds.

The 4-time world champion led most of the 66 laps after his one and only stop behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. However, on new medium tyres versus Verstappen’s worn softs, Hamilton was still unable to overtake.

All weekend, the difference in lap time between the tyre compounds was very small. This was coupled with the low degradation nature of the Circuit de Catalunya. Now, Hamilton has called for a change of approach in the future.

“It was a very easy one-stop here and the tyres were very very similar but we have already spoken to Charlie [Whiting],” he said.

“We spoke about potential options for next year or even later on this year, spreading the compounds out a little bit, making it a bit more racy.

“It was just so difficult to overtake. I was on fresher tyres than Max. These cars, more so maybe at this track, but following is even worse than I can remember before.

“I had a harder tyre which was slower so I couldn’t catch and overtake, even though I had much much younger tyres. So the fundamentals definitely aren’t right and need to be improved.

“Hopefully they’ll do something more exciting later on in the year.”

Lewis Hamilton also suggested that the effect of turbulent air could be felt when four seconds behind another car.

“Being that it was really windy, as soon as you get like four seconds behind, you start to feel the effect of the car ahead,” he said

“You shouldn’t be able to feel it until you get right up their tail but it starts affecting the car already and you start to lose the momentum as you get closer.”

Recently, the FIA announced a number of changes to the technical regulations for the 2019 season. Those changes promise to make overtaking and following other cars easier. Features include simplified front wings and heightened DRS effects, via a “wider and deeper” rear wing.