Formula 1

Pirelli Look Ahead To The German Grand Prix

1 Mins read

Just one week after the British Grand Prix, Pirelli heads to yet another legendary venue in the form of the Nürburgring for this weekend’s German Grand Prix.

Following a series of frightening tyre failures at Silverstone, aggravated by a number of factors, Pirelli has chosen to bring Kevlar-belted tyre to this event in place of the steel-belted specification which raced at Silverstone.

The compound nominated for this event are the P Zero White Medium and the P Zero Yellow Soft, which have not been seen in that combination since April’s Chinese Grand Prix.

Motorsport Director at Pirelli Paul Hembery said: “Surprisingly, the Nürburgring is one of the circuits that we have the least experience of, having only raced there once before in Formula One, but we’re certain that we have chosen the correct compromise between performance and durability by bringing the medium and soft compounds.

He continued: “The Nürburgring is not on the whole an especially demanding circuit for tyres but there are still some distinctive aspects to look out for when it comes to tyre management, such as the kerbing on the chicanes. We are expecting a performance gap of 0.8 to 1.0 second between the two nominated compounds, which should make the strategy options versatile. We would expect an average of three pit stops for most drivers.

In response to the failures seen at Silverstone, Hembery said: “For this race only, we will bring Kevlar-belted rear tyres. Even though the 2013 high-performance steel-belted version is completely safe when used correctly, the Kevlar-belted version is easier to manage and as long as there is no system in place which allows us to enforce tyre-related specifications, like tyre pressures or camber the incorrect use of which were contributing factors of the failures at Silverstone, we prefer to bring a less sophisticated tyre.

Hembery also revealed that the teams’ practice of switching the rear tyres and also particularly extreme kerbs had been other contributing factors to the failures.

He concluded: “From the Hungarian Grand Prix onwards there will be a completely new range of tyres, combining the characteristics of our 2012 tyres with the increased performance of the 2013 specification.

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