Tyre safety concerns for Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton raised concerns in a drivers' briefing about tyre safety following the high-speed blow-out suffered by team-mate Nico Rosberg at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Following the second practice at Spa, Mercedes driver Hamilton asked when supplier Pirelli was going to do something about its tyre safety. Rosberg suffered tyre failure at 190mph but stopped without hitting barriers.

Race director Charlie Whiting defended Pirelli's record in the meeting. Whiting told Hamilton that Pirelli had suffered no failures since they had changed the construction of their tyres during the 2013 season to provide more stability.

One insider said he felt Hamilton's query had been unfair on Pirelli as aresult of its improved record on reducing failures since the start of the 2014season.

During the 2013 season, several tyre failures during the British Grand Prixforced Pirelli into immediate changes to their tyres.

Pirelli is still investigating the cause of the failure on Rosberg's car,which happened as he approached the flat-out Blanchimont corner at the demanding Spa-Francor champs track, one of F1's mos Governing body the FIA had earlier issued a directive to teams warning them on safety grounds to stay within the stipulated parameters for tyre pressure and wheel camber at the race meeting.

Rosberg said the incident was "quite a shock" and added that the fact he had not crashed "wasn't down to my skill. It was just luck that I stayed out of the wall". Mercedes executive director (technical) Paddy Lowe said: "It was a very unusual situation where there seemed to be some bits of the tyre structure coming out up to a minute before the terminal failure of the tyre. "It's not something I've seen before. Pirelli have taken the tyre away to analyse. We are double checking the car as well and it's something we'll keep working on this evening."

(BBCsport)