Pirelli explains change in tyre pressure monitoring

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Pirelli racing manager Mario Isola says new tyre pressure checks are being made to ensure tyres aren't being heated in unexpected ways.

The FIA announced on Friday it would be carrying out all tyre pressure checks prior to the wheels being put on the car in each session, with the change taking place with immediate effect. Previously, tyre pressures were checked when the wheels were on the car but Isola explained Pirelli wants to ensure no teams can heat the tyres using the wheel rims to increase pressures for the checks.

“Yes we are working with [the FIA] to improve the system of checking the prescription," Isola said, "With this new system, to check the tyres before they are fitted on the car, the pressure.

"We have a consistent system to measure it independent from the session, so in FP1, FP2, FP3, quali and race we measure all the tyres in the same way, we have consistent numbers in all the sessions, so we are 100 per cent sure that only the blanket is heating the tyre and teams are quite happy because once they fit the tyre they are not allowed to bleed air but they have a reference pressure.

"I can give you a result in a couple of races when we have some numbers to evaluate but for me the system is working so let’s see what is going to happen.”

And Isola says Pirelli will use the next few races to work out if it should lower the minimum starting tyre pressures, following complaints in Austria that the pressures are too high.

“It depends on what we see now, that’s why we wanted to take some races to check which is the pressure evolution from starting to running, because of course we need to police starting and running. We need to know the starting and the running pressure and if we see that consistently we have now, from starting to running we have in some cases the same value, or even a lower value with the running pressure.

"If this situation is going to change for the future, as it was a couple of years ago, where the running pressure is higher than the starting pressure, of course we can adjust the starting accordingly to the numbers that we see.”

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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.