“Tyre-gate” clarification, a Team LNT opinion

From Team LNT’s perspective, there’s one major issue here – inconsistency. The British GT Championship is billed as being a controlled tyre formula – one tyre manufacturer, everybody is as equal as possible when it comes to performance from a product supplied. When an advantage is given to a team or particular car in terms of a tyre that clearly puts one car so far ahead of the opposition and the rest of the field, it then does not become a level playing field.

LNT fully appreciate Avon have a difficult task in developing tyres for a very diverse grid to create equality of performance. But it seems a tyre has been made available that works particularly well for a specific car. Avon could now work to develop a tyre with the same performance increase, working with individual manufacturers and teams until the balance of equality is restored for the rest of the grid but it has run out of time to do so. Developing tyres also dramatically increases costs to all the competitors; something a controlled formula is specifically aimed at reducing.

This Championship, so closely fought at the beginning of the year, is in danger of becoming a forgone conclusion unless the previous equality with tyre supply is addressed immediately.