Pirelli’s head of car racing and Formula 1 Mario Isola has confirmed that tests of their new tyres for the 2021 season shows they are better able to withstand the high forces generated at the quickest tracks.
Isola said preventing a repeat of the failures seen at last year’s British Grand Prix was a priority for Pirelli:
“That’s obviously the target. We don’t want to have any any tyre issue anywhere. Silverstone is a good reference because it’s a circuit with, I believe, the highest severity of the championship. But to quantify it, it’s a bit difficult because we have different tests with our indoor department to assess the level of integrity. So to give you a number is difficult. I saw some numbers what and I can tell you that is a clear step. It is visible. We are not talking about 5% or something like that, that is probably a small number. It is a clear step.” – he explained.
“We have some tests that are stressing the tyres for hours also and you can see quite a big difference in that. It’s important to understand how to translate indoor testing with the usage on track. Obviously what we try to do is to have different indoor tests that are testing that are replicating what happens on-track. A mirror of what happens on track, that’s the final target of any indoor test. But it is not as easy as I’m telling you, because you have to consider the load, the dynamic camber, the speed, the pressure – because you start with a certain pressure, you stabilise at a different pressure than maybe you have a Safety Car and you drop down with the pressure and then you have a colder condition and again, you change everything. So what we try to do is to replicate what happened on outdoor conditions with our indoor testing. But it is a longer activity, it is a complex activity where you try to replicate any single element of what we experience outdoor.” – the Pirelli head of car racing concuded.
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