The Pirelli motorsport director, Paul Hembery accepted on Friday that his company was wrong in the exploding tyre issue which overshadowed the British Grand Prix.
At first Pirelli was not ready to accept that they were on the wrong side and instead held the teams responsible for the blow-outs. The tyre company pointed out few factors responsible for the failures like rear tyres and too-high tyre pressures.
Hembery said: "We underestimated the impact of swopping tyres with the cars two and three seconds per lap quicker this season. When you swop them around, it creates a weakness with the metallic belt. We got that wrong. We need to get it right going forward.
"There were secondary issues, which have been mentioned, but I don't want to take away from the fact that it was our responsibility. Going forward, though, there are things we need to be much more rigid on and that's where we are at."
For this weekend's German Grand Prix only, the cars would be running on Kevlar-belted rears because it is more resistant to punctures. From the race in Hungary later this month, the tyres will have last year's structure with this year's compounds.
The two practice sessions of German Grand Prix on Friday went off without any incidents. However the driver's association had threatened not to participate in the German leg of Formula One by raising the safety concern. The association's director Jenson Button has crarified and said: We want to go racing; that's what we're here to do. We love racing and want to put on a show for the fans, especially. But obviously last weekend was dangerous, and we said if we have issues again that we would have to consider not racing this weekend."
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