Hembery admits Pirelli were too conservative in 2015

Pirelli motorsport chief Paul Hembery thinks Formula 1 will be more exciting in 2016, admitting that the choice of rubber for races this season was too conservative.

Fans and insiders agree that Sunday’s Brazilian grand prix was too processional. World champion Lewis Hamilton called it “boring” as he followed home Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg on an identical strategy.

Pirelli is taking some of the blame if races in 2015 were not inspiring.

“We may have been a little too conservative this year, because we have seen too many one-stop strategies,” chief Hembery admitted to UOL Esporte.

“This is not in line with what we want and what we were asked to do, which was to get two to three stops,” he added.

Hembery said the problem for Pirelli was weighing the request for tyres that degrade for the benefit of the ‘show’ versus the fact that testing is so strictly limited.

“With the lack of testing, we were just so limited in the amount of changes that we could make,” he said.

But he said things will stabilise for 2016 with another season with the same rules, before it is all change with new chassis, engine and tyre regulations in 2017.

“The rules will be changed dramatically, although we don’t really know yet what is going to change,” said Hembery.

“And there is the understanding that we need to have a significant increase in the number of tests. There is no company in the world that can do what we have done without testing,” he insisted.