Pirelli Head of F1 & Car Racing Mario Isola remains hopeful that the new Formula 1 compounds for the 2022 championship will not lead to a lack of strategic options for the teams, after the multinational tyre manufacturer based in Milan previously said there is a possibility the 18-inch tyres could force teams to complete the race with only one pit stop given the low tyre degradation.
In a recent interview at the official launch of Pirelli’s 2022 motorsport programme, Mario Isola explained the goal of the new compounds is to still give teams the chance to make more than one pit stop and therefore have the possibility of different strategic options during a Grand Prix weekend, especially in the race.
“I hope not,” – the company’s Head of Motorsport replied, when asked about concerns that we will see the same tyre strategy for all teams this season – “I hope we don’t have less strategic variabilities, because the idea, and the way in which we have designed the tyres, is to continue to have different strategies – a mix of one and two stops.”
However, Mario Isola confirmed that one-stop Formula 1 events may turn out to be one of the necessary disadvantages of the new tyres:
“It is also true that with a new product with less degradation, it is possible that we have less pit stops, so we have [the] majority of the races [as a] one-stop. As I always say, for me, it is not an issue, as long as we have good races and action on track. When overtakes are too easy, it’s not good. So if we have drivers that can push for overtakes, we have a lot of action. It’s important that the driver is putting a lot of effort in trying to overtake – that is exactly what spectators want. There is a survey made by Formula 1 on that and the majority of feedback was that spectators don’t want easy overtaking – they want action on track and fighting.” – he added.
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Given the fact that Pirelli had to develop this year’s 18-inch tyres without the benefit of a 2022-spec car available to them, Mario Isola admitted it was difficult to only work with the computer simulation data alongside the team’s supplied mule cars for circuit testing:
“I would say that is quite a normal situation. In 2016, we had to develop wider tyres for 2017, and no 2017 cars were available. So it is something that is not new to us. What we do is, we have a great cooperation with the teams – they supply simulations. We did a lot of work with simulation in 2016, 2020 and 2021. So we have a virtual model of the tyre. That is a black box that we provide to the teams; the teams can plug in this model in their simulators and give us their feedback. So they have an model of the car, we have a model of the tyre, we have some iterations, and we converge to an idea of the final version of the car and the final version of the tyres.” – he continued.
Pirelli’s head of F1 and car racing then explained how Pirelli having access to data from all the teams provided them with the possibility of them identifying if any competitor were heading down the wrong path during the testing sessions with the mule cars:
“Compared to the teams, we have an advantage that we have 10 teams that are supplying simulations, so we can compare the teams and see if there is somebody that is out of the ballpark. But [I won’t say] it isn’t difficult because, without a representative car, it’s really difficult. But we have some tools and, thanks to Formula 1, we had the opportunity to develop these tools.” – Mario Isola.
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