Rubens: Smaller front tyres to blame

Rubens Barrichello reckons F1 made a mistake switching to smaller front tyres as that decision, he believes, is partly to blame for a lack of overtaking.

Last season, Formula One dropped the grooved tyres in favour of slicks, however, this year that powers-that-be opted to make the front tyres narrower in a bid to ensure better grip balance.

Barrichello, though, reckons what it has actually done is put an end to overtaking.

"Sometimes I am a bit critical of things, but when I heard they will make the front tyres smaller, I just didn't understand it," he said.

"The fact that we had better racing last year was because we dropped the ugly grooved tyres, to slicks. That's what we need, more mechanical grip, to be able to lose the aerodynamics.

"We are losing aerodynamics all the time, but you follow another car and you just understeer off the track. Unless you have at least a second on board, which is not the normal thing - I overtook (Sebastien) Buemi but I was doing 2m01s, he was doing 2m04s and it wasn't an easy overtake.

"You cannot follow, the front of the car washes out. When you grab the throttle back on with lots of lock, you lose the back end so the car in front just goes away. Then you're into saving fuel and the race becomes a bit hard."

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