Pirelli took an opportunity during Friday’s action to run some prototype tyres which will be used later in the season. Drivers were given two sets of the new tyres to use on Friday, although they were not required to do so.
Some eagle-eyed fans who watched the running on Friday may have noticed some drivers running tyres which did not contain the typical Pirelli markings to denote the type compound. These black, unmarked tyres were Pirelli’s prototype tyres and Pirelli allowed teams to run the tyres so that the tyre manufacturer could collect data and evaluate the future of the tyre.
“For today only, some drivers also made use of our prototype tyres, which were soft compound tyres containing certain new elements that are designed to further improve resistance to multiple impacts,” explained Pirelli motorsport director, Paul Hembery. “This is part of our ongoing development plan, and we will now look at the data obtained to evaluate if these elements will be used in future.”
The Italian tyre manufacturer will analyze the data collected from the sessions and will determine when they will implement the new tyre and whether it requires further changes. There were no major performance differences reported by the drivers and the lap times on the new tyre were virtually the same as the current tyre. It is reported that Pirelli could introduce the revised tyre structure as soon as the Malaysian Grand Prix.
Although Pireli has stated that the changes are a part of their ongoing development plan, some people have started to speculate that the changes are a result of the Austrian Grand Prix. This was the race during which Sebastian Vettel’s race was ended prematurely because of a mysterious puncture. Later investigations concluded that debris was the cause of the incident, but some believe that there was a fault with the tyre.
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