Mercedes technical director James Allison doubts the performance of the new Pirelli tyres during Formula 1 testing will be representative of the season to come.
As the action begins on Monday in Barcelona, teams are facing a tricky week ahead with temperatures well down on what would be expected even in winter with a chance of rain and even snow forecast on all four days.
That means it will be even harder for drivers to get the sensitive compounds into their correct operating window and that means the degradation and grip level of each tyre will be much different to what it was at the test in Abu Dhabi last November.
“It’s going to be a challenge, but our constraints are no different to anybody else’s so we just need to operate as efficiently as we can and get the maximum amount of experience in the eight days that we have available to us,” Allison was quoted by Motorsport.com.
The cold weather is not the only concern either, with a new track surface around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya significantly altering the characteristics of what is traditionally one of the hardest layouts of the year on the tyres.
“This year is going to be particularly interesting because they just resurfaced Barcelona and it is a lot, lot smoother, and the sort of rubber that would be torn up last year in Barcelona testing could probably survive this year,” he explained.
“But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be super-representative of the remainder of the year.”
Also Read:
- Pirelli hopeful new tyres a better balance between more overtaking and durability
- Resurfaced Barcelona providing Pirelli with a “headache” ahead of F1 testing
After being very conservative in 2017, Pirelli has gone more aggressive with their rubber moving each compound a step softer as well as creating a new Hypersoft tyre for low grip, low degradation circuits with the aim of making two-stop races the norm this season.
