Autosportfoto

Pirelli not planning to tweak F1 tyre compounds mid-season

Pirelli's Formula 1 racing manager Mario Isola says there are currently no plans to tweak the 2017 tyre compounds mid-season, with the focus instead being on making improvements for 2018 through testing.

Pirelli revised the make-up of its tyre compounds for 2017, making them more conservative and durable as well as increasing their width by 25 per cent to come in line with the new technical regulations.

Pirelli undertook an extensive test programme for the new tyres last year, but would not get firm feedback and data until the season began. The compounds had proven to be challenging for drivers to manage and develop, as seen in Australia when Mercedes was forced to pit Lewis Hamilton early as he struggled to keep his ultra-soft tyres alive.

While Pirelli is yet to truly stretch the legs of its hard compound on a race weekend, Isola said that its expectations for the ultra-soft, super-soft and soft tyres had been met, meaning changes are unlikely mid-season.

"Changing the compound during the season is always difficult because you change the balance in between teams, so it's something that we need to discuss carefully," Isola said.

"There is no plan at the moment to change the compounds during the year - but it's something we can discuss. I'm not saying it's impossible.

"I think with the soft,super-soft, and ultra-soft compound we are quite on target. At the moment the medium is a bit far from the soft in terms of delta lap time, and we need to understand the hard because we've never used it before and the first time is in Barcelona.

"So let's collect some data first and then we can discuss - but there is no plan at the moment."

Pirelli is set to work with all 10 teams to develop its 2018 tyres, with the first test taking place following the Bahrain Grand Prix.

"It was the first test so we had to take some information basically on the direction we want to take for the future," Isola explained. "We tested different prototypes with different solutions. Obviously the tests are blind, like they were in the past, so the teams just know the level of baseline and we tested different baselines: soft, medium, hard to define the direction of development.

"We collected very important information - we had some issues at the beginning - thanks to the teams that authorised us to have an extension of time from 6pm to 9pm so that we could complete the test plan and we collected quite useful information for the direction."

Zdroj: crash.net