Pirelli has announced its tyre choices for the entire new Formula 1 season as part of the ongoing battle with the global pandemic. In the past, Pirelli has confirmed its rubber 14 weeks in advance for long-haul events and eight weeks in advance for European events.
But the coronavirus forced the hand of the Italian manufacturer last season and in consideration of the logistical difficulties caused, planning is now of a premium.
As was the case last year, there will be a fixed allocation for each driver of two hard sets, three medium, and eight soft at each race. Most of the choices are similar to those for last year or 2019 given a number of tracks that did not feature on what was a heavily revised 2020 calendar return this season.
Pirelli has opted for a step softer at two tracks – Azerbaijan and Brazil – while there are two new circuits in the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia.
Pirelli F1 boss Mario Isola said: “Announcing all the selections for the year right now will help the teams and the drivers with their planning, also allowing for maximum flexibility just in case the calendar has to change due to Covid-19 restrictions, as we saw last year.
“The selections themselves are on the whole similar to last year [or 2019, in the case of races not run in 2020], which means that teams should have plenty of data to fall back on. But we have two races where the nominations are softer. The first is Azerbaijan, where our C2 hard tyre wasn’t used last time, so we are now going with the softest selection of all: C3, C4 and C5. Then we have Brazil, where we will take the C2, C3 and C4 this year, as the C1 that was selected as the hardest choice last time didn’t show a particularly big advantage in terms of wear over the medium. In both cases, the softer nomination could lead to a greater variety of race strategies”.
Pirelli and the FIA reserve the right to alter the selection up to 15 days before each race should circumstances require it.
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