FIA Formula 1 World Championship tyre suppliers Pirelli, have revealed how each of its five tyres will be identified during pre and in-season testing for 2019.
The Italian tyre manufacturer have reduced their tyre range from seven compounds to five for this year. The three chosen compounds for each race will be named as hard, medium and soft and coloured white, yellow and red.
During pre-season testing in Barcelona that gets underway on 18 February, all the teams will be able to use all five compounds throughout the eight days. The compounds will be known as C1 (the hardest), C2, C3, C4 and C5 (the softest).
In an attempt to reduce confusion, especially on track, Pirelli will vary the identity of the markings on some of the compounds. C1 and C2 will both be coloured white, but the C1s will not have the extra bracket markings. For C4 and C5, those that will be coloured red, C5 will not have the extra markings. The C3 compound will be coloured yellow.
Credit: Pirelli 2019
Pirelli Racing Manager Mario Isola is hoping the teams can acclimatise to the new compounds.
“Normally we will only see three colours at every race, so we’re only using three colours at the tests as well. But we want to make sure that people can tell the compounds apart,” Isola explained.
“As a result, the very hardest and softest tyres won’t be marked with stripes: only the colours will vary. This will be the case for the in-season tests as well.”
