Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsPirelli

Three F1 tyre compounds to choose from in 2016

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Pirelli will nominate three tyre compounds for teams to choose from in 2016 to open up variations in race strategy.

At present, Pirelli supplies two tyre compounds per race weekend - the harder compound being known as the prime tyre and the softer known as the option - with both having to be used during the race at some stage. However, a change to the tyre regulations has been introduced following a request from teams to have complete freedom.

Pirelli will now nominate three compounds per race weekend, with each driver receiving 13 sets for the three days of track running. Of those 13 sets, Pirelli will select two sets which have to be allocated for the race (of which a driver must use one set), while a set of the softest available compound may only be used in Q3 to ensure a pole position shootout featuring all ten cars.

The teams are remaining to select any combination of the compounds to complete the remaining ten sets of tyres as they wish. The FIA adds: "Unless intermediate or wet-weather tyres have been used, a driver must use at least two different specifications of dry-weather tyres – at least one of these must be the one chosen by the tyre supplier."

Pirelli has confirmed that each driver within a team can have a different allocation to their team-mate, while there is added flexibility over which tyres a team has to give back after each practice session.

The regulation change was approved by the FIA at a meeting of the World Motor Sport Council in Paris, where changes to power unit development regulations were also confirmed.

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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.