Teams across the classes are pleased by the return of tyre warmers for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with Ferrari’s Antonio Giovinazzi saying that it was “the right decision.”
“Think about the night time when all the cars come out of the pits on cold tyres” the Italian told reporters before the first free practice session for the French endurance classic. “It was not safe, and we’ve worked really hard to help the safety of the rules in past years. So I think here was a good time to add them back.”
This is a line of thinking with United Autosports’ Olivier Jarvis also agreed with. “I think in the hotter temperatures it’s okay, but Le Mans can sometimes be freezing at night. At five degrees with no tyre warmers? It’s not nice,” he said to MotorsportWeek.com, on the subject of tyre warmers.
External tyre warmers, or heaters, were absent from the previous three rounds of the WEC 2023 season, which was controversial amongst teams, fans and drivers. After a spate of crashes for the Hypercar class at Spa, which were put down to lack of tyre temperature on outlaps, the ACO and WEC elected to bring them back, for one race only, at Le Mans.
“Incidentally, we’ve come here and it’s 30 degrees so it wouldn’t have been an issue,” said Jarvis.
“But nobody wants to see some of the best drivers in the world coming out the pit lane and sticking it in the wall. It’s not good for the sport, and it’s not good for the fans,” said the Brit.
The 39-year-old United Autosports driver also added that tyre warmers for the Hypercars were more important the other classes, in his opinion.
“In LMP2 at Spa, we didn’t struggle so much. It was difficult, but we didn’t struggle. Having spoken to the guys in Hypercar, for this year, they have a different tyre because the cars are much heavier. So it’s a harder compound, or stiffer compound. This makes it really difficult for them,” he finished.
Meanwhile, in Hypercar, Ferrari’s head of endurance race cars, Ferdinando Cannizzo, told reporters when asked about tyre warmers by MotorsportWeek.com, “I think the only reason is safety. Because if I have to say, for performance, I think we were not that bad in warming up the tyres.”
“But at the end, I understand the reasons why the FIA and ACO decided to go with the tyre warmers. Specifically during the night if something happen, it could be dangerous.
Or on top of that, you have to consider that you may have cars with different speed on track?
Maybe GT with cold tyres tires and vice versa. So i understand the reasons why and that we need to accept and work like that.”
Finally, Ferrari driver Nicklas Nielsen felt the race after Le Mans, at Monza in July, will be quite different as tyre warmers will no longer be available. “I think it’s going to be quite a shock for us when we come back! But it’s gonna be the same for everyone, so something we just have to cope with. I’m not really the type of guy, who is gonna complain about what we can and what we cannot. So, whatever they decide we have to go with that,” the Dane told reporters at a Ferrari media session.
