Exploding Pirelli tires make F1 look like a farce in England (Update)

UPDATE The recurring Pirelli tire failures that have now once again posed an obvious safety hazard for drivers at Silverstone has led to many drivers outing their public concern, stressing that something needs to be done about it.

The BBC confirmed that after the British Grand Prix a meeting was taking place between Jean Todt, Charlie Whiting and Paul Hembery to discuss the current tire situation.

Below watch Ricciardo's tire explode.

"Obviously today wasn't foreseen," said Pirelli's Paul Hembery.

"We've seen something new, a different type of problem.

"We're currently performing our analysis. We've got to go away and understand what's happened today.

"When we've got the facts we can understand what's happened and get to the core of the issues.

"We take these things seriously and when we have the answers I'll let you know.

"It's pointless me adding anything else until we have all the facts."

06/30/13 All because some teams refuse to allow Pirelli to make changes to their tires to make them better – Lewis Hamilton's hopes of a win at the British Grand Prix exploded in a shower of rubber this afternoon.

The Mercedes driver was leading the race at Silverstone after starting from pole position ahead of Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel when his tire exploded after picking up a puncture as he powered down the Wellington Straight.

It put him more than half a lap from the pits so he was forced to limp back to the garage as the rest of the field swept past him.

He made it back to the pits where the tire was changed, but there was immediate concern about how much damage he had to the underneath of his Merc.

It dropped him down to 14th place.

Just a few laps later Ferrari's Felipe Massa suffered an almost identical problem at almost the same point on the track as Hamilton.

Incredibly, Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne then also had a left rear puncture, with his tire exploding at around 180 miles per hour.

At this point the stewards sent out the safety car, and teams told the drivers to stay off the curbs as fears grew that the much-criticized Pirelli tires simply weren't up to standard.

The tire supplier came under heavy criticism after the Spanish Grand Prix when the degradation caused the drivers to make at least four pit stops during the race, but with so many tires exploding at high speed at Silverstone there will be renewed questions about whether they are even safe enough to continue racing with.