Formula One Race director Charlie Whiting said today that he “almost red-flagged the race” referring to today’s British Grand Prix which saw four tyre delamanations during the race.

The safety car was deployed after the third tyre blow-out, suffered by Jean Eric-Vergne. Charlie said that not only were the drivers in danger, but the marshals too were being put at risk as they continually tried to clean up all the debris following the incidents.

“It was quite close to being red-flagged; it did occur to me to do that,” he said. “To clear up all the debris was putting marshals at risk, and it is not satisfactory. We haven’t seen a failure like this before – and that is what has been addressed. So we need to analyse it very carefully to see if we are able to establish the cause.”

He went on to say that it was, “too early to draw conclusions” regarding the cause of the tyre issues but hinted that tyres that did not fail could provide vital information in Pirelli’s analysis.

“They have a lot of analysing to do. This includes the tyres that didn’t fail, because maybe we will find something there that was on the verge
of failing that will give us a better indicator of what happened.”

Charlie added that although the failures are to be discussed at a meeting of the Sporting Working Group on Wednesday, a solution must be found in advance, that suits all parties since the German Grand Prix is only one week away.