Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFormula 1

Pirelli wary of in-season development

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Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery says the tyre manufacturer will have to be wary of in-season development after big strides over the winter.

Pre-season testing highlighted the significant improvement that has been made with the 2015 cars compared to last year, with the fastest time of the final test some 2.5s quicker than the pole position time from last year’s Spanish Grand Prix. Aside from a new supersoft compound, Pirelli’s main change since then has been to strengthen the rear tyres.

The first four races see Pirelli opting for the same tyre compounds as last year, but speaking exclusively to F1i Hembery says that could turn out to be a more aggressive approach in 2015.

“With the rate of performance development it can change dramatically the way the tyre is being used,” Hembery said. “So using the medium compound might have been conservative one year, but as we progress through the season with the normal development rate that F1 has through a season we maybe will have to be careful and make sure we follow the performance improvements very closely so that we don’t end up being caught out by underestimating the improvements in performance.

“So that’s one area, and of course in-season testing is extremely limited so if we do have to provide some revisions the ability to actually introduce them is far from ideal but that’s the way the sport is.”

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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.