Pirelli is continuing the development of tires for 2025. After the Monaco Grand Prix, which ended with Charles Leclerc’s victory last Sunday, both Ferrari and the Italia tire manufacturer have moved to France for a private test session aimed at working on both dry and wet tires for the future.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the two Italian companies ran at Paul Ricard, a track known for being an ideal testing location not only for its numerous configurations but also for its auxiliary facilities. The first day was be dedicated to dry tests, featuring the C3, C4, and C5 compounds, while the second day is scheduled for wet tire tests, on which Pirelli has worked extensively over the past months to meet the needs of Formula 1 and its teams.
This is not the first time this season that the Milanese manufacturer has conducted thorough tests to develop its products for the next year. Pirelli started the process with test sessions in Barcelona and Jerez before the championship began, and after the Grand Prix in Suzuka, they stayed in Japan with Racing Bulls and Sauber for two more days of testing. In that case, numerous prototypes were tested to confirm the structure of the 2025 tires, even though the first day was disrupted by rain. The main objective of that test was to evaluate different slick tire prototypes.
In contrast, at Paul Ricard, Pirelli is mainly seeking answers for wet tires, both intermediate and full wet. The choice of the French track is not accidental, as it can be artificially wetted according to the manufacturer’s requirements, allowing for the evaluation of various tire characteristics by increasing or decreasing the amount of water. Organizing such a test is not easy because Pirelli needs to rent a track that can be artificially wetted quickly. Fiorano is an alternative, but with few high-speed corners that transmit a lot of energy, it does not always provide useful data to highlight some prototype issues.
“We have two days of testing. The first is a dry session, while on the second day, we will wet the track, but the priority is to run on wet tires to improve performance,” explained Simone Berra, a Pirelli engineer, when asked about the test objectives.
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It is no secret that drivers have often complained about the poor performance of the full wet compound compared to the intermediate. As soon as possible, drivers tend to return to the pits for a pit stop because of the significant competitive gap between the two compounds. The full wet, in particular, suffers from overheating and degrades more quickly. Even though the heavy wet tire has been used less frequently in recent years, Pirelli still aims to improve its product.
Last year in Monaco, a full wet tire debuted that did not require tire warmers: “We know that currently the full wet suffers a bit too much from overheating and degrades quite quickly due to the removal of the changes we made last year. We are therefore working on the compound, but especially on the tread design to reduce tire movement and improve overheating because if the tire movement is reduced, less heat is generated, and consequently, there is less overheating.” The idea is also to bring the full wet performance closer to the intermediate, but Pirelli must cover a wide range of scenarios, especially those with a lot of standing water on the track, which involves structural and safety limits in the design phase.
The goal is not only to improve the full wet but also the intermediates. Last year, Pirelli developed a prototype that did not require tire warmers, but the teams preferred to delay its introduction until the full wet performance with this new feature was observed. After a year, Pirelli wants to continue the development program for the intermediate, although it is currently not as high a priority as the full wet.
“We have a plan for the intermediates as well, using fundamentally new compounds. Our goal is to eliminate tire warmers on the intermediate, as we have done with the extreme wet tires.”
The basic idea is to introduce these changes for 2025, given the technical production and approval times by the teams, but some new features could be introduced during this season if the test at Paul Ricard is successful, as happened last year with the full wet tires that do not require tire warmers.
The work is also focusing on dry tires. Yesterday, Carlos Sainz completed 138 laps. The most tested range was the one related to the softer compounds made by Pirelli, as the Italian tyre supplier is trying to define the structure of the slick tires for 2025 and evaluate the prototypes of the softer compounds for next year.
“For the slick test on the first day, we are mainly focusing on defining the construction for next season. But we will also try to test C3, C4, and C5. For C5, I think it will be the first time we test it this season. So, it will be interesting to see some results on the compounds for next season,” said Simone Berra before the test.
After the success in Monaco, today Charles Leclerc is engaged on behalf of Pirelli at Le Castellet in France to test the 2025 tires. This is the fourth appointment for the teams and Pirelli in their work to fine-tune the product for the next season. The schedule includes a week off before the trip to Canada, so these two days at Paul Ricard were scheduled.
In previous tests, Pirelli had already gotten an idea of the progress made in tire construction. Now it is a matter of starting to finalize the prototypes.
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