Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsPirelli

Pirelli considering extra compounds for 2016

Pirelli could expand its F1 tyre range to include more than four compounds in 2016 in order to get back to three-stop races.

2015 has seen a number of one-stop races, with Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery admitting the softest compounds in the range are proving to be too hard this season. Looking ahead to next year, Hembery has confirmed to F1i there could be additions to the current dry range of supersoft, soft, medium and hard compound tyres.

Asked if there could be more than four compounds in 2016, Hembery replied: “It’s not open to us at the moment.

“But we are looking initially at - I’m not going to call it a super supersoft seriously, but you get an idea we are looking for another compound for maybe the Singapore and Monaco type tracks. In that context, yeah, we will have more than four compounds.

“Maybe there is a reason for adding in a few more as well that would allow us to better engineer a two and three-stop race.”

And Hembery says any such change would negate the need for teams to be able to pick their own tyre compounds.

“I guess the teams don’t need a free rein if we can deliver two to three stops. That’s the whole objective, to get a bit of variety there. If we can get back to where we were maybe a couple of years ago there’s probably no reason to do anything differently with the regulations. But we are discussing that at the moment, it’s hard because there are so many people you’ve got to sit down with.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.