From Byron Young in Dubai
Lewis Hamilton has been hit by tyre safety fears over his Bahrain blowout mystery.
Pirelli admit they have not got to the bottom of what caused the rubber to fail and wreck his Manama weekend.
And they are not entirely convinced now it is down to debris as first thought. So super cautious experts have launched a SECOND, more detailed, investigation so it does not happen again.
The tyre has been jetted back to their base at Milan, in Italy, and will be forensically examined this week to try and discover exactly what happened to his Mercedes racer during final Free Practice Saturday morning in Manama.
Initially it was put down to debris because Giedo van der Garde, who was right behind Hamilton, also had a puncture and his tyre was clearly sliced open by debris.
And Felipe Massa’s double failure in the race was not the fault of the tyre either.
But events around Hamilton’s car remain a troubling question mark.
Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery said: “The Hamilton tyre is something that we need to look at a lot more to understand as we are not really sure about how it happened.
“The Hamilton tyre is something that we need to look at a lot more to understand as we are not really sure about how it happened," added Hembery.
"There is very little evidence there, other than overheating, about what it could be.
"The only thing we have is that van der Garde was following Lewis, and he picked up a huge cut through the top of the tyre at the same time.
"So that failure is a bit of a question mark, whereas the two from Massa were very straightforward."
"We will take all the pieces apart and do a full lab analysis," he said
"That will either confirm our initial findings, or make us realise that we need to do something and have to implement some changes.
"There will be a full analysis. We treat every incident very seriously.
"There is very little evidence there, other than overheating, about what it could be.
"The only thing we have is that van der Garde was following Lewis, and he picked up a huge cut through the top of the tyre at the same time.
"So that failure is a bit of a question mark, whereas the two from Massa were very straightforward."
Hamilton had a Bridgestone tyre failure in Turkey several years ago because of the aggressive way he drives.
And it was so bad that for safety reasons McLaren opted to make their ace racer have an extra pit stop in the GP, ruining his chances of victory.
In Manama at the weekend the blowout led to a complete suspension failure on the rear left side of Hamilton’s Mercedes.
And the resulting repair work required a new gearbox and that meant a race-wrecking five place grid penalty.
Hamilton started ninth and finished fifth.
Pirelli have made an impressive contribution to F1 racing.
Having designed tyres that are amongst the best in the world the ones produced for F1 are not designed not to last the distance so the racing is more interesting.
POLICE ‘FOIL BAHRAIN BOMB PLOT’
Police say they foiled a plot to bomb the Bahrain Grand Prix.
They allege two “girls” were arrested trying to get into the Sakhir circuit on Saturday.
One had a pillow hidden under her clothes and, police claim, she admitted it was to “test security measures”.
In a statement police said "two girls who were trying to carry out a terrorist act at Bahrain's international circuit in the south, as the kingdom was hosting the Formula One race," according to state news agency BNA.
Public security chief General Tariq Hassan did not give the age of the girls but they were identified as Nafisa al-Asfur and Rihanna al-Musawi, and are being held for 60 days on charges of seeking to bomb the Sakhir circuit.
Hassan said the circuit’s ring of steel included 8,000 policemen, tanks and armed soldiers and they had seized 1,000 petrol bombs and 137 tyres protesters were planning to set ablaze as well as 72 fire extinguishers which were to be used as bombs.
The circuit also used car bomb scanners and sniffer dogs as well as random searches.
The Bahrain regime is accused of extensive human rights abuses, torture and false imprisonment of men, women and children, by international agencies including Amnesty International.
And it was against the backdrop of those alleged abuses that the race took place with nightly protest marches and clashes with security forces.