F1 speeds cause concern

Imola pole position was two seconds quicker than 2001

BY Andrew Benson BBC Sport Online motorsport editor

Formula One could be poised to make changes to the rules in an attempt to stop the escalation of cornering speeds.

Max Mosley, the president of the sport's governing body, the FIA, has said that he is "concerned" about the increasing speed of the cars as a result of the tyre war in F1.

Mosley hinted in a news conference at the San Marino Grand Prix that he was looking at making changes to the tyre rules in an attempt to stop the dramatic escalation in times.

Michael Schumacher's pole position time at this weekend's San Marino Grand Prix was two seconds faster than the mark set last year by David Coulthard.

We are now talking about taking measures to stop the cornering speeds going up too much

Max Mosley
FIA president

Mosley admitted that he was talking to tyre companies Michelin and Bridgestone to try to find ways of preventing speeds continuing to increase.

He said: "If we did make changes to the tyres, it might be on grounds of anxiety about performance. We are talking to the tyre companies.

"We are a little bit concerned that the cornering speeds are now reaching levels which are not reassuring.

"So we are now talking about taking measures to stop the cornering speeds going up too much beyond where they are now."

Grooved tyres replaced slicks in 1998 as part of a large package of rule changes introduced to keep speeds under control.

Mosley said at the time that he wanted to peg speeds back to 1996 levels and was worried that a tyre war would take them way beyond that.

Tyres are not doing enough to contain speeds, Mosley believes

But although speeds were contained to a point, the tyre companies have continued to improve their products, despite the addition of an extra groove into the front tyres.

And now cornering speeds are considerably faster than they were in 1996.

Last year, the tyre companies said that speeds would not go up as much in 2002 as they had in 2001 because they had already made significant progress.

But they underestimated the degree to which they could continue to make big performance improvements.

The FIA has the right to impose any changes it wants to the tyres on the grounds of ensuring speeds do not get out of control.

However, Mosley will try to work hand-in-hand with the tyre companies.

Concern

The problem they will face is that the tyres already have four circumferential grooves in them so there is little room to add another.

Mosley has talked in the past about introducing either lateral grooves in addition to the existing ones, or trying to introduce all-weather tyres.

Engineers have said that all-weather tyres would be impractical and dangerous.

If they were hard enough to survive a race in dry conditions, they would have insufficient grip to make them safe in the wet.

And if they were practical for wet-weather use, they would fall apart in no time in dry conditions.