However, he could not confirm the precise reason for the wheel coming loose
until Red Bull carried out an investigation of the car. Webber had collided
with Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne shortly before the incident, but Horner
was unaware if that or mechanical failure led to the wheel’s release.
“Until we get the car back we’re not too sure,” he said. “The report from the
gun man, who had extra-time because it was not a hectic stop due to a nose
change, was that the right-rear was secure and done up tightly. It is
difficult to make any assumptions.”
Perhaps the only certainty about this Chinese Grand Prix was the significance
of tyre choices. For Pirelli, the race must have represented some kind of
rhapsody in rubber. For everybody else, reduced to incomprehension by the
constant place-shuffling arising from teams being split between soft and
medium compounds, it merely reinforced the tyranny of the tyre. Indeed, the
paddock chatter in the aftermath of Fernando Alonso’s triumph focused less
on drivers and constructors than it did on “primes” and “options”. Webber’s
forecast that the 2013 season would be defined by “tyres, tyres, tyres,
tyres” suddenly sounded eerily prescient.
McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said: “It’s quite excruciating, trying
to save tyres non-stop from start to finish. It seems to go on forever. It
feels painful, and however bad it is for me, it must be a lot worse if you
have to drive like that.”
If an F1 purist such as Whitmarsh is adopting this view, the concerns for
Pirelli and the sport’s authorities are manifest.