Red Bull Racing driver Daniil Kvyat has given a cautious welcome to Pirelli's new ultrasoft tyre compound, designed to be used on street circuits such as Monaco and Canada.

However, the 21-year-old added that it was too early to tell what the tyre would be like in race conditions from the limited time he's had to try them in testing this week in Barcelona.

"It is a tyre which is one of the fastest compounds and in certain circumstances it will be good, like street circuits," he commented.

"It is a soft tyre, good grip," he added. "It is normal and has a similar behaviour to the super-softs but nothing much different. It will be a step forward at street circuits.

"It was interesting to try it for the first time but there is nothing else I can tell you."

Overall, despite enjoying himself by being back in the car this week, the Russian driver still wished he had more track time available to him before the start of the 2016 season in Australia next month.

"I’ve had two good test days even though I would have liked to have done more laps. There is two more test days so I will try to extract the maximum amount from them.

"I will try to personalise the car a little bit more and figure out where we can make more steps forward and develop the car for the first race.

"Even at the first race we will continue to understand the car and continue to improve the performance."

Scene at the first pre-season test

FEATURE: The first test in numbers

GALLERY: Pre-season testing

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

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.

Recent Posts

Honda changes F1 project leader after disastrous 2026 start

Honda is shaking up the leadership of its Formula 1 power unit programme as the…

1 hour ago

When you're good enough, you're old enough!

On this day in 2008, Formula 1 saw a spring chicken named Sebastian Vettel become…

3 hours ago

Leclerc defends Ferrari call as Vasseur sees missed Madring win

Charles Leclerc left the Madring with no regrets about Ferrari's strategic gamble in the Spanish…

4 hours ago

Norris’ cola clash – tells F1 ‘I’m allowed to drink what I want’

Lando Norris lost out on a victory at the Madring thanks to a perfectly miserable…

5 hours ago

Sainz takes heat from all sides after bruising Madrid homecoming

For Carlos Sainz, the Madring's first Formula 1 weekend was supposed to be a homecoming…

6 hours ago

Team Talk: A very first Sunday at the Madring

Cadillac Sergio Perez, DNF “Our race was going really strong up until the moment we…

8 hours ago