With the final day of the shortened pre-season test finished, Pirelli have had the opportunity to get a greater understanding of all the new tyres, with all 5 compounds being brought to the Bahrain International Circuit – the C1,C2,C3,C4 and C5, all of which will be used on different race weekends through the year.
Mario Isola – Head of F1 and Car Racing at Pirelli feels that all the tyres performed well and without issue, with the softest compound of tyres showing a slight little bit of abrasion. Lap times will have been effected by conditions and fuel-loads run by each team making any comparisons between races held at Bahrain last year to testing this year hard.
“Throughout all three days, all the compounds performed well and no problems such as graining emerged: only light abrasion on the softest compounds. As well as the weather conditions, lap times were naturally influenced by the different fuel loads run by each team, making performance comparisons with last year’s race and free practice at Bahrain very difficult.“
It’s difficult for Pirelli to accurately run tests to access the performance difference between the compounds due to the track evolving throughout the day. Perhaps the easiest to tell for Isola is between the C2 and C3 tyres whilst the gap between the C3 and C4 compounds is bigger than expected.
“It’s also difficult to accurately assess the performance difference between the compounds, due to track evolution. The easiest to tell is probably the gap between the C2 and C3, which is around 0.5 seconds, while the gap between C3 and C4 is bigger than expected, with the C4 driven by many cars when the track was at its fastest.”
This season will be the final season in which the 13 inch tyres are run before the tyres are changed to 18 inches in line with the drastic change in regulations for 2022. Teams will have the opportunity to test these throughout the year.
“Now we look forward to the beginning of a season that will be the last one run with 13 inch tyres before the move to 18-inch tyres in 2022, for which a series of development tests has been planned throughout this year”
