Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto hit out at rival Formula 1 teams who voted against a proposal to bring back last year’s tyre compounds.

The proposal, which Ferrari supported, attracted the support of five of the 10 teams when it was put to a vote on Friday. A majority of seven was needed to approve it.

Binotto said F1 had enjoyed a better race in Austria because there was closer competition between the front running teams, and that bringing back last year’s rubber would have closed the field up further.

“Obviously today it has been a good battle,” said Binotto after Sunday’s race. “Normally you’ve got good battles when you do not have a car which is over-performing, so this weekend has been great in that respect.

“[But] I think we missed a great opportunity this weekend on the tyres decision. I think the entire F1, we should have done something. Sometimes we are discussing a lot and we are not acting.

“So I still feel really ashamed that we didn’t change the specification of tyres for the rest of the season because that would have been a great opportunity to somehow try to close the field.”

However McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl, who opposed reintroducing last year’s tyres, took yesterday’s lively race as an indication the teams were correct not to dump this year’s tyres.

“It was a fantastic race to watch for Formula 1 fans today which I think was really necessary after all the discussions we had in the last weeks,” he said. “And I think it also confirms that we need to be very careful in the short term measures or actions in trying to fix something.

“As I said in the press conference on Friday we have an issue which is a lot bigger which is the speed gap between the top teams and the midfield teams

“That is something we need to focus on to get that right for ’21, and to not soften these proposals which on the table now again in the next three months because of various conflicting inputs from the different teams with their own agendas.”

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2019 F1 season