Hamilton unimpressed with 'too hard' 2019 Pirelli rubber

Lewis Hamilton says he doesn't have "a lot of good things" to say about Pirelli's 2019 tyres, judging the compounds as too hard and the selection itself as confusing.

In a bid to prevent blistering and overheating, Pirelli has manufactured all its tyres according to the thinner-gauge tread specification that was used last year at selected races.

But Hamilton's first impression was that the rubber was a bit too hard, a point he sarcastically illustrated by posting a video on social media of his dog Roscoe struggling to bite into a Pirelli tyre!

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"That is why I said he concurs with me, they are a little bit hard," contended the reigning world champion.

"What do you want to know, if the tyres are any good? I don’t really have a lot of good things to say on that, so best I probably don’t say anything.

"As we get into the year, it is going to be a challenge. They are more challenging this year than they were last.

"And we have all these different names of tyres – C5, C4, C3, C2 and C1. Which is for me personally even more confusing than all the colours that we had."

Indeed, F1's exclusive tyre supplier has changed its identification system replacing compound names with hard to soft codes ranging from C1 to C5.

"We will get used to it, and it will be the norm," he added.

"Valtteri [Bottas] seems to be enjoying driving the tyres out there and I will get a bit of a better feel for what the tyres are like.

"I’ve been driving on more fuel so it is never a good feeling generally in any year when you have more fuel on board.

"But we are all in the same boat and I will try to understand them the best I can."

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