Pirelli 2017 tyres will have 'very low degradation'

Pirelli's 2017 Formula 1 tyres will enjoy low degradation in a bid to reduce the need for tyre management this season.

The Italian tyre manufacturer tackled Formula 1's massive technical changes, marked by larger width tyres which are a throw-back to the golden age of Grand Prix racing, by carrying out 24 says of testing  last year with modified 2015 cars supplied by Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari.

Pirelli put all-new compounds through their paces to insure the rubber complied with the specific requirement of producing low degradation.

"They are completely new compounds," explained Pirelli's F1 racing manager Mario Isola to Motorsport.com.

"We have encountered very low degradation, but these simulations are one thing.

"There will be a completely different performance window in which the teams will arrive in the second half of the season - where we often are on track with high temperatures."

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When the regulations were devised, drivers expressed the need to have compounds easier to control with regard to temperature, a requirement Pirelli has achieved.

"On the few occasions there was overheating, it quickly returned to the optimum value?" Isola said.

"The drivers made specific requests to us about this - because if they were following another car in the race then they would lose downforce, slide more and then overheat their tyre.

"Our goal is for the tyre to return to a normal condition in a very short time, which will help improve grip.

"In testing we have seen that this target has been reached - but it needs to be verified on the actual cars, so we will wait for the first few races."

Isola conceded that testing and simulation conducted with the series of 2015 cars could be misleading given the obvious performance gap which will exist between the older and up-to-date machines.

"Although the modified cars aimed to simulate the downforce levels we will find, we have not seen the true performance that we will have in 2017.

"We have seen from the simulations that we have been sent by teams, based on patterns with the new cars, that the performance will be better than those we saw from the mule cars.

"This leads us to still have some question marks on the feedback that will come from the track in the first tests and the first few races of the world championship."

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