Felipe Massa has labelled the tyre failures in the British Grand Prix as 'unacceptable'

Felipe Massa has labelled the string of tyre failures in the British Grand Prix as "unacceptable" and called on the FIA to force through changes on safety grounds.

Massa stopped short of calling for a boycott of this weekend's German GP but said the matter would be discussed in Friday's drivers' briefing. An opinion was expressed in the Silverstone paddock that the Nurburgring is unlikely to produce a similar spate of incidents as its layout does not place tyres under the same strain. However, Massa said that Spa, venue for next month's Belgian GP, places tyres under even more strain than at Silverstone. "I hope they change something for Spa. It's another place that, if you have this problem, you don't know what's going to happen," he said. Pirelli will meet with the FIA on Wednesday to discuss the issue and with safety now top of the agenda, it seems likely that swift action will be taken. That has not been the case so far this season, even with the delaminations seen in Bahrain and Spain. Pirelli responded with a new tyre, but at the same time said the changes had more to do with the delaminations looking bad rather than safety; the tread might have come off, in other words, but at least the tyres stayed inflated. The new tyre was given an outing during Canadian GP practice but rain limited running there and teams - Lotus, Force India and Ferrari - vetoed the move anyway as they thought it might favour rivals. Pirelli were therefore forced to introduce yet another tyre for Silverstone with a different bond between the tread and steel belt on the tyre's circumference to stop the delaminations. They have already denied that this was the cause of Sunday's failures. Massa said he hopes the FIA will indeed play the safety card to end the game, as he put it, of "whether tyres are better for one team". "I'm sure the FIA will go through these games and try to solve the problem," he added.