Heading into the 2017 Formula 1 World Championship season with new wider tyres is a step into the unknown for Pirelli who have admitted that they were underwhelmed by the performance of this season’s tyres during testing with Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull, but also acknowledge that they have ticked some important boxes with their new compounds.
Pirelli’s F1 racing manager Mario Isola said of the 2017 rubber, “They lacked a bit of performance. Although the modified cars aimed to simulate the downforce levels we will find, we have not seen the true performance that we will have in 2017.
“We have seen from the simulations that we have been sent by teams, based on patterns with the new cars, that the performance will be better than those we saw from the mule cars.
“This leads us to still have some question marks on the feedback that will come from the track in the first tests and the first few races of the World Championship.”
“Our indoor tests are calibrated to the values that have been given to us by the team simulations. But these simulations are one thing … Will degradation and overheating be the same as with the simulations? It’s a check that we can only do on track.”
On the bright, Isola revealed that requests by drivers were met as the new tyres show very low degradation rates and overheating has been reduced significantly.
Isola said, “The drivers made specific requests to us about this, In testing we have seen that this target has been reached – but it needs to be verified on the actual cars, so we will wait for the first few races.”
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