F1 teams vote to stick with 2019 Pirelli tires

Wolff and Mercedes get their way again, ensuring Mercedes will win every race in 2019

The F1 team bosses, together with some drivers, met with the FIA and Pirelli ahead of this morning's opening session as a number of teams sought to have the Italian manufacturer revert to the 2018-spec thicker treaded tires.

The move follows the failure of a number of teams to get their thinner treaded tires into the correct operating window, which in turn has caused them to blame almost all their misfortune this year on the tires.

One team that has got the tires to work correctly is Mercedes, and understandably the German team was against the move back to the 2018-spec tires which would have required the support of seven teams.

Representing the drivers were Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Charles Leclerc, Romain Grosjean and Alex Wurz, chairman of the Grand Prix Drivers Association (GPDA), while Nikolas Tombazis represented the FIA, and Ross Brawn represented Formula One Management.

Understandably, Mercedes was against the move, as was McLaren, which has also made a better job of working with the 2019 tires. Mercedes customers, Racing Point and Williams, both sided with the German team as did Renault, meaning the vote went 5-5.