Pirelli is thoroughly investigating a strange tyre wobble phenomenon which affected several drivers in qualifying yesterday at Spa.
The massive vibrating effect was caught on camera as slow motion replays showed several cars affected by the unknown issue as they exited the final chicane at Spa.
The amplitude of the rear end deformation movement was so severe that it broke off part of the rear wing of Lance Stroll's Williams in Q1.
Pirelli F1 boss Mario Isola was at a loss to explain a problem which he had witnessed for the very first time yesterday.
"We are looking at what they can be or which is the type of stress on the tyre," he told Motorsport.com on Saturday.
"At the moment I don't have a lot of information because we are working together with the teams to better understand this effect.
"It seems that we have this at the exit of the bus stop, and exit of Turn 1, so slow speed corner in traction. We have to better understand it. It could be an effect of the grip with the torque.
"Obviously the grip this year is much higher and the tyre is wider, so it could be a deformation of the contact patch and the torque that generates these vibrations.
"We are now looking at the data from the teams in order to better understand this effect."
- Alonso confuses Honda electronics by going flat through Pouhon!
- Williams tech boss Paddy Lowe was also puzzled by the effect, admitting he'd never seen anything like it before.
"We have often seen before a kind of standing wave in the sidewall, but in this case, we're seeing a standing wave on the tread with sort of a flat threepenny bit shape to it," he said.
"I've never seen that before. It's a very high amount of energy in that, as you have seen in the video."
Sunday morning however, based on overnight work and analysis, Pirelli's Isola ruled out an integrity issue involving its rubber.
"In all our investigations on the laboratories the tyres are OK," Isola told Motorsport.com.
"Now we’re having a look in the data more in detail on this specific effect.
"What is important to understand how is this effect generated. We had the time to speak to the teams last night, but then they had to go, and we had some more information this morning.
“It looks like we have this vibration is just out of Turn 19 and Turn 1, so it is a specific point, it’s not on all the circuit. But because it is the first time we see it so clearly – and maybe also the slow motion images were announcing a little bit this effect – when we see this, we want to understand it.
“We are checking with all the teams, because it’s important to have feedback from them. They have not only the data, they look at the suspension, they look at the floor, they look at the wings, so they can give us more complete feedback. Obviously if you touch certain frequencies, then you can generate a failure.”
Check out the unprecedented phenomenon in this short video.
Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
