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Pirelli have hit back over suggestions that their tyres are making the 2012 Formula One season too unpredictable.
So far this year there have been five different winners in the opening five races, with no team able to get a foothold on the championship.
While this has been a huge positive for fans and neutral spectators, F1 tyre supplier Pirelli have come under fire from drivers and constructors who believe it is too difficult to plan strategies with the current compounds.
However, Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery has hit back at the criticism, insisting that the unpredictability is down to the higher levels of competition in the sport.
Speaking to Autosport, he said: “At the start of the year, if we had said five different winners and five different cars then everyone would have suggested you had been smoking something - but we have got it.
"And I think the vast majority of fans will be pleased to see exciting races. Anyone who begrudges [Pastor] Maldonado's win in Spain with Williams is someone who needs to get out a bit more, because the whole paddock was delighted. I think for a lot of people's views, that is what they want to see."
Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has claimed that tyres are playing too much of a role in the outcome of races, while seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher recently said that the tyres were like “raw eggs”.
Hembery refuted these claims, saying that teams were still adapting to the new compounds, and suggesting that the season will soon settle down.
“We don't want to be the major element of F1 racing. It needs to be down to the engineers and drivers and cars, so from that perspective we would not like it to get any more exciting.
"In time the engineers will master what they are doing and, give it is a few more races, things will settle down. We had some indications in Spain that three or four teams had made some progress. We felt that was borne out with some of the results we saw."
