Red Bull’s Chief Engineer, Paul Monaghan, has raised doubts about Fernando Alonso’s claim that Pirelli’s latest Formula 1 tyres are influencing car performance.
During the British Grand Prix, Pirelli unveiled a new tyre specification designed to handle the higher-than-anticipated loads generated by the cars in the first half of the season.
While the compounds remained unchanged, teams had the opportunity to test the reinforced construction during practice sessions leading up to the Spanish Grand Prix in June.
Following the introduction of the new tyres, Alonso experienced a decline in performance with his Aston Martin team, finishing seventh and ninth in the British and Hungarian races, respectively.
Monaghan’s remarks have cast uncertainty on Alonso’s theory regarding the impact of the upgraded tyres on his team’s performance.
As per RacingNews365.com, Monaghan when quizzed about Alonso’s assertions said: “That’s hard to tell because we were given the opportunity in Spain to do a back-to-back [with the new tyres] and learned a little bit of what was coming and prepared ourselves for Silverstone.”
“People will remember the British Grand Prix after the Safety Car, but if you look prior to the Safety Car, Max [Verstappen] relative to Lando [Norris] put himself in a reasonable position.
“It closed up and everybody rolled the dice on what tyre to put on thereafter.”
