Not a petrol head? Then you probably know Pirelli as the publisher of an exclusive pictorial calendar for motor trade executives featuring, until recently, persons who are not men with not many clothes on but, at least in the early days, with the Italian company's tyres as props.

About seven years ago, the 149-year-old rubber maker founded by Giovanni Pirelli moved away from the nearly nude caper cals to celebrating persons who are not men "for their accomplishments rather than their physical attributes". This was about the same time (and I'm not making any connections or conspiracies here) that Pirelli became the sole supplier of tyres to Formula 1.

Now in F1 world, supplier doesn't mean you give the teams free tyres in return for a free mention. Nup. While the tyres cost about $3k each, Giovanni's company has paid over $500m for the privilege.

Now the big Mission Winnow signs on the red Feezers don't include pics of the exceedingly masculine, rugged cow persons from real western towns like Stepney, South Australia that were aimed at "post-adolescent kids who (were) just beginning to smoke as a way of declaring their independence from their parents" and who were called Malboro Men.

Now back at Pirelli. No one really likes monopolies (well except the owners of the monopolies). And that's particularly true among F1 drivers, whose lives and careers rely on four fat pieces of rubber. So, in the Baku race a fortnight ago, Max and Lance Stroll came close to that final podium in the sky when their Pirellis blew out.

Max was particularly angry when his Pirelli parted company from the rim at 320km/h. Look, I know a bit about the PR caper and the Italian company, now majority-owned by Beijing-based ChemChina, played it masterfully. Step 1: blame the drivers and the team. Step 2: have your own inquiry and then, Step 3: blame the teams.

Good strategy but we've seen this movie before. Like in the 2020 British GP, where Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and Carlos Sainz all had front-left tyre failures. That was seven years after the 2013 British GP where six drivers had tyres explode, Hamilton's happening after seven laps when he was leading.

"Safety is the biggest issue. It's just unacceptable really. It's only when someone gets hurt that someone will do something about it. It's a waste of time talking to the FIA and if they don't do anything that says a lot about them." Lou told me at the time via the psychic internet.