Pirelli still far from finalising 2017 tyres

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Pirelli has warned it is still far from finalising its plans for the 2017 F1 tyres as testing continues this week in two locations.

Ferrari is testing in Barcelona - ending on Wednesday - while there is also a three-day test taking place with Mercedes at Paul Ricard. Sebastian Vettel said there was a lot of work still to be done after his first taste of the 2017 tyres in August but Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery says the current prototypes are a long way from the envisaged final product.

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“It’s the ongoing development of next year’s tyre, again a mix of things between structures, compounds, profiles, there’s nothing yet that’s remotely close to what we’re going to have," Hembery told F1i. "We’re screening through different ideas and concepts that we’ve tested on our simulators.

"It’s a long process in many ways but it’s a short process in the sense that we’ve got to be ready by the end of November. So it’s a very intense period, we need to make sure we’ve got the right downforce levels, that’s a factor that we’re a little bit concerned that we won’t actually achieve the numbers that we’re actually seeing from the simulation data that we're being sent.

"I have to say the simulation data has started to normalise, the teams are staring to normalise. It’s not to say they’re the same but you can see there’s a trend in the way that they’re expecting next year’s cars to go."

And Hembery says the latest data shows there will be no problem in achieving the targeted improvement in lap times next year.

"Certainly the data suggests a big performance improvement, that’s for sure, and we’ll certainly achieve the five seconds compared to Barcelona 2015 which was the initial target. So the drivers will be working hard on their neck muscles I’m sure in the winter period because with the extra drag the performance is actually coming through corners as a combination of the aero and the tyre.”

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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.