One of the most important changes of the 2022 championship will be the introduction of Pirelli’s 18″ low-profile tyres. At the same time, Pirelli will continue to decide the tyre-set allocations for each of the ten Formula 1 teams.
Two years ago, each Formula 1 team had the possibility of deciding what tyre compounds they wanted to use during each Grand Prix weekend, per driver, and would select ahead of free practice how many tyre sets of each compound they wanted Pirelli to supply them at a given event.
This situation gave the teams an advantage when selecting the tyres which better suited their cars, given the fact that each Formula 1 car would behave differently based on different tyre compounds that were more appropriate for its design characteristics.
That process, however, was not continued in 2020 due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, as Pirelli could not cater to each team’s specific wishes in terms of tyre choice as that would put more strain on the tyre supplier’s production schedule as manufactures all over the world faced production difficulties due to the repercussions of Covid on supply chains.
Therefore the Italian manufacturer decided the tyres to be supplied to each team in 2020, and that practice continued in 2021, and – according to Pirelli’s Head of F1 and Car Racing Mario Isola – will continue in 2022.
Mario Isola was interviewed by the Formula One official website, and explained why the new practice – Pirelli deciding tyre allocations – continued for 2021 revealing it was the teams who requested it.
He explained: “We had to find this solution [of fixed tyre allocation] for the pandemic – to [have] a quicker reaction – but then the teams came back to us saying ‘actually this system is quite good, we want to keep it for the future.’ It was not our decision at the end to continue with this fixed allocation; the teams told us if they have a fixed allocation and it is the same for everybody – so there is no advantage for one or the other – they can start planning on this fixed allocation. Instead of spending time and the resources and people to think about one set more of the mediums or one set less of the soft, they have that allocation, they have to work around this, and so in 2020 they said: ‘We want to continue for 2021.’,” Mario Isola added.
The Pirelli boss admitted that with new tyres making their debut this year, and with the Formula 1 teams having as little as no experience with them, especially as the sport will have radically different ‘ground-effect’ cars as well, they all decided to leave that task for Pirelli to handle for another campaign as well, with matters open for the following championship.
“In 2021, with a new product for 2022, nobody was confident for deciding the compounds breakdown, and so they wanted to continue,” he explained – “I don’t know if in 2023 they want to change but, for the moment, this is the answer,” concluded Mario Isola.
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