Pat Symonds calls for tyre decision delay

Williams Chief Technical Officer Pat Symonds has suggested that there should the decision on tyre choices should be postponed to stop the teams testing the new tyres gaining an advantage.

Teams must nominate their tyre choices for next season before Christmas but Symonds belives that this should be delayed because only Ferrari, Mercedes, and Red Bull will have tested the new rubber and they could stand to gain an advantage.

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"I think we have a problem, but the problem is probably greater than you realise," he said. "The rule that came in for this season, which allows teams to choose three compounds from the five available – which incidentally is a good rule because it spices up the racing and brings a bit of randomness into some strategies – really does fall down next year."

"We have to make those tire choices before Christmas, before we have even run a car with the tires. By the time we have done our testing we will have chosen tires for the first five or six races. That hands an enormous advantage, in my opinion, to the teams who have done testing."

"Even if it's blind testing, and even if we're getting the data, you won't pick up all the nuances the test teams will have. It's far more important we look at that problem and perhaps for a year, or the first half of the season, we suspend the right of the teams to make that tire choice so we all live together and we don't hand that advantage to Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes."

Ferrari's engineering director Jock Clear agreed with Symonds, saying that while those involved with testing won't be aiming for an advantage, they will still pick some things up.

"I'd like to think we are all comfortable with the way the data will be shared and the way the test will be run," he said. "But Pat is right – there will be nuances you will get out of it by being there and the drivers involved will get a feel for it so there is an advantage there."

"For all of us, making decisions for what tires we will be racing next year when even we will have very little touch on them, it's very difficult to do. Pat is correct in what he says, in that it certainly needs to be looked at," he continued. "We never envisaged our involvement with Pirelli testing as an opportunity to steal a yard on everyone else. As such, we would be happy to go along with that if some way was found to even out that possible advantage early season."

Ferrari will begin testing 2017 tyres with a modified 2015 car at Fiorano, their private test track, on August 1.