Mario Isola, Pirelli’s Head of F1 & Car Racing, has admitted that there is a ‘level of uncertainty’ regarding the Italian manufacturer’s new 18-inch tyres for the 2022 Formula 1 season which he insists is “impossible to avoid”.
Formula 1 is ready for the start of a new era and the major changed aerodynamic rules for the 2022 campaign will be introduced alongside Pirelli’s larger-diameter compounds which should help improve racing and shift focus from the car to the drivers’ abilities.
Testing for the new Pirelli tyres took place during the previous campaign with every team except Williams being involved in several testing session, as Pirelli wanted to gather as much data as possible to share it with the teams. Commenting on what to expect for from the new Pirelli tyres this year, Mario Isola explained
“There is a level [of uncertainty], it’s impossible to avoid that. We were working in parallel on simulations and the simulations are giving us some numbers also because the teams now have a model of the car that is quite good, quite reliable, because they converge and we receive a simulation from all the teams. We have 10 different models. The first release was… one car was here, the other car was there so it was a bit difficult, differences in lap times [were] crazy, so it was a bit difficult to understand which was the real performance expected for next year’s cars. Then, as usual, we have some iterations of the model of the car with a model of the tyre, and now they converge to a model that is not too far from each other. It means that on the simulation side we have an indication.” – Pirelli Head of F1 and Car Racing Mario Isola added.
Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection from Puma!
In order to be able to take part in the testing sessions, the Formula 1 teams changed the 2021 cars to attempt to replicate the new aerodynamic elements and speeds of this year’s new cars. Due to the different characteristics, the new wheel covers were only used sporadically.
When asked about the differences between the modified altered mule cars and the final models for 2022, Mario Isola explained: “One big difference is brakes because we had to use the current brake system. The heat transfer between the brake and the rim is different, it will be different. During the test we didn’t use the wheel covers too much because we don’t have the brakes that are designed with a flow that is completely different. It was not the right way to use the wheel covers because the heat generation was not representative [for this year]. We have all these elements that we have to consider.” – the Pirelli Formula 1 boss concluded.
Leave a Reply