In a recent interview with
Sky Sports F1, Pirelli Motorsport Director Paul Hembery has indicated that the company will look to be more aggressive with their tyre choices for events in the Formula 1 World Championship 2013 season. The company has been reviewing it's performance in the 2012 season and has come to the conclusion, as have many fans, that in the later rounds they were too conservative in the compounds they allowed the teams to work with.
The direction Pirelli wish to move will signal a return to the challenges the teams faced in the first half of last season with degradation and difference in option and prime performance causing set-up and race management headaches for engineers and drivers throughout the pit lane. This added a huge amount to the spectacle come race day which was somehow lost as the season marched on.
Paul stated that Pirelli are comfortable that given the relatively minor changes to the rules regarding car design and that next years tyre compound is and evolution of, rather than a complete redrafting of the 2012 compound that the more aggressive choices will only serve to spice up the racing rather than introducing a lottery system to determine the final results. His reasoning for this is that the teams are experienced with the type of compound they receive and the similarity of the cars between the two seasons will still allow their data to be relevant. The teams also had a chance to race in last years finale in Brazil with the new compound and their feedback was very positive. Their data and feedback also matched that of Pirelli's own testing. This was an interesting step and a truly useful one for the teams who generally only get to test new tires in pre-season testing when temperatures are generally much colder than those that will be experienced during the season.
2013 should also see more use of the super-soft compound which only made 4 outings in the 2012 season and Hembery believes they could be used a lot more this year,
Paul Said,
"At the end of the season last year, we could have used them in the last four races actually - that is the stage it had got to and that is because the teams are very good at their jobs. They have the best engineers in the world, the best drivers and they really found a way of not degrading the tyres, not graining them and we hope we can give them another push in that direction to maybe create two or three pit-stops.
"I'm not saying we are always going to use the super-soft, but we can make more aggressive choices for sure."
With Only 64 days until the new Formula 1 season kicks off in Australia expect the news here at Race Department to be flowing thick and fast over the coming weeks with the teams readying to reveal their rides for 2013. To get your off-season fix of F1 speculation head over to our
forum.
@PaulHembrey,
@SkySportsF1
