Hembery: “Schumacher could have gone on the podium”

It's an Paul Hembery enthusiastic about what appeared on Friday at the presentation of the Motorsport season 2012 at the Pirelli Foundation. Enthusiastic first of all for the choice of the two test drivers (both for F1 and for... GP2 , GP3), Jaime Alguersuari e Lucas di Grassi. “They will make their debut in Jerez on 8 and 9 May”, said the director Pirelli Motorsport.

“We decided to focus, first of all on a young man, Alguersuari, just 22 years old, to help him return to Formula 1. Di Grassi, on the other hand, is 26 years old, doesn't race in Formula 1 but that doesn't mean he can't return to the circus. For them this is a great opportunity and who knows, maybe they won't follow the example of our former test drivers like Romain Grosjean, Peter of the Rose e Nick Heidfeld - has explained -. Pirelli wants to focus on young people. This is also demonstrated by the fact that we have invested 11.000.000 euros for the WRC Academy".

Young people are the future, the tires protagonists of the first two Grands Prix of the season are the present. A comment on the World Championship was inevitable after the two races held in Australia and Malaysia. In reality Hembery didn't go too far. “It is still early to be able to draw conclusions – has explained -. In Malaysia, for example, the race was a bit peculiar. The track had been used for MotoGP tests. It was very dirty and in wet conditions some problems arose which we didn't see in the winter tests.".

One reference, in particular, is regarding Mercedes which seems to particularly suffer from tire wear. “It was a complicated race for everyone. Schumacher could very well have gone on the podium - he has declared -, in qualifying he showed that he was going strong. Still in difficult conditions, Rosberg also had some problems in Australia. It's too early to be able to express opinions.".

One thing is certain: “The riders gave positive feedback on the intermediates which are a great product”. Hembery stated this with certainty as he explained Pirelli's choice of the various compounds: “We wanted to vary the strategies, avoiding doing an entire year with just one compound. There are small differences depending on the tires used and these differences then matter."

“This is a challenge for the teams and we have made an aggressive choice in terms of compounds to improve the product and ensure that it pushes more and more”, he continued.

And if the results of the new tires are positive at the beginning of the season, Hembery did not, however, want to say too much about which of the drivers adapted best to the new tyres. "Button it went well, too Perez he went fast and made one pit stop less than the others... It's still early to say anything", he concluded smiling.

Lorenza Teti