F1 News: Pirelli Gives Target - We Want Drivers To Push

Pirelli, the tire supplier for Formula 1, aims to encourage drivers to push harder during races rather than focusing on managing tire temperatures for improved racing. As part of this initiative, the company intends to conduct development tests in the coming year to create a new generation of tire compounds.

Formula 1's decision to scrap a ban on tire blankets will greatly help Pirelli's cause. The Italian company has been looking to make potential changes to its tires to eliminate the heightened occurrence of thermal degradation, which has become more prominent this season.

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Often looked at as the 'enemy of racing' by members of the paddock, the heat prevents drivers from pushing hard to the limit. The overheating problem was discussed at the recent F1 commission meeting, with calls being made to improve the race-ability of tires in the future.

Fortunately for Pirelli, the meeting brought about some good news as it approved the scrapping of a tire blanket ban for 2025. This positive step will help the tire manufacturer to solely focus on the overheating issue rather than having to create a tire with extra warm-up characteristics.

Now, with a clear path ahead for a testing program meant to create better tire compounds for 2025, Pirelli’s F1 chief engineer Simone Berra said:

“At least now the target is clear, and clearer compared to previous weeks.

“We know that we need to work in 2024 with development tests to produce a new generation of compounds. And this will be the target.

“We will continue to improve the reliability of the tyres in terms of structure, but the compounds will be the focus for our 2024 development plan, and we will work obviously more focusing towards the overheating.”

Berra revealed that the first step of the process would be to analyze this year's data. He added:

“We want to try to understand why, from 2022 to 2023, the overheating effect was higher. What was the reason?

“After this analysis, which we will do at the end of the season, we will try to understand where to work on the compounds to improve this aspect.

“Obviously, we would like to have drivers able to push as much as possible and not to be managing the tyre temperatures. This is the target from our side.”

Overheating Not a Construction Issue

In addition, the chief engineer ruled out a construction issue with the tire that is causing it to overheat and instead, pointed at the rate of wear and tear. But, he did mention the need to rule out the exact cause of overheating that was noticed in a few races. He concluded:

“I don't think it's a construction issue.

“I think that sometimes we have overheating comments, but it's not real overheating. The drivers just feel a lack of grip or a decaying grip, but sometimes it's just the tyre that is degrading itself because of wear or graining or for other reasons.

“It happened in the past that we had overheating comments but it was not really overheating.

“But we have some races where we noticed that we had high temperatures, and especially the rear axle was affected by these high temperatures. So, we need to distinguish which is the real reason.

“I think we need to work more on the compound for what concerns the overheating. Obviously, we can work even with the structure, because if we have a more reliable tyre and if we can decrease a little bit the pressure, this will obviously help even the overheating effect, as this will increase the contact patch and so you distribute more uniformly the temperature.

“But for sure a compound itself doesn't change everything. So the compound should work together with the structure and that's why we need to progress together: structure and compound.”