Alonso Raises Safety Concerns on Pirelli Marbles

Fernando Alonso has joined the group of drivers who pointed the finger at Pirelli's rubber marbles for safety concerns in the series. It is believed the dirty track played an important part in Vitaly Petrov's DNF late in the race, when the Russian driver lost control of his car in Turn 8 and was later projected into the air by a bump in the run-off area, damaging his R31 beyond race continuance.

As far as Alonso goes, the Spaniard warned Pirelli and the F1 officials that marbles resting on the track due to the tires' high level of degradation may cause some serious problems on tighter circuits or on venues that don't have such comforting run-off areas such as the ones in Sepang.

“There is some concern for places like Canada, Singapore, Monaco, that you catch a lapped car, they let you past, you go inside, you take some marbles and then on the next corner you miss the braking point and you go straight,” explained the Ferrari-an.

Ferrari's Stefano Domenicali actually told the media that Alonso's clipping the rear of Lewis Hamilton's car when trying to overtake him also happened because the side of the track used by the former was dirty and full with chunks of Pirelli tires.

“Malaysia was a very wide circuit, and you can come back to the track,” continued Alonso, “but there will be some difficulties in some narrow tracks. We need to be careful and we need to get used to these new things as well.”

Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery confirmed the marble-type problems encountered by the tire maker in Malaysia, although he insisted that's something he never came across during pre-season testing. Back then, the marbles that were left on the track following tire degradation were bigger and did not attach to the tires like they did in Malysia.