Delaminated tyre leaves Luca Filippi with questions rather than answers

Luca Filippi’s FIA ETCR quarter final in the Fast Pool was cut short by a tyre issue, with his Romeo Ferraris-developed Giulia slowing down dramatically during the last lap.

The Italian driver analysed the situation with his team, and found out that the tyre had delaminated rather than suffered a puncture.

“Delamination is an entirely different issue compared to a puncture,” said Filippi to TouringCarTimes.

“With this kind of issue you never know what might have caused it, because it could come from a number of reasons. I could have hit a kerb just a millimetre wrong, I do realise that at Cimini 2 we use the kerb quite a lot. It could also depend on the tyre, there’s no way to tell unfortunately.”

Filippi says that not knowing the cause of the problem makes a solution more difficult to seek:

“Obviously all we can do is try to guess what the cause was. We are likely to change the setup of the car, but we are already running a very small amount of camber, and if we take too much off we could end up causing issues to the outside of the tyre. We will also raise the tyre pressures a little bit, but not knowing the root of the issues doesn’t allow us to be sure we have solved the problem. We will consider all the options, make the best possible choice and hope we got it right.”