Pirelli enjoyed what they described as a “useful” first two days of testing with their new 18-inch wheels coming for 2021.
The change, which comes seven years after it was first proposed, will see Formula 1 finally fall in line with road car technology and almost every other category of motorsport.
And last week, the Italian supplier began the long road towards producing the rubber that will be raced for the first time in around 18 months time.
“We were delighted to open up a brand new chapter at Paul Ricard, with the debut for our 18-inch tyres, which will change the face of Formula 1,” Pirelli motorsport chief Mario Isola commented.
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“Renault provided a 2018 mule car for the 18-inch test, with Sergey Sirotkin driving to mark this historic moment. We completed our planned programme as expected, covering 213 laps with the 18-inch tyres over two days.
“This was very useful for us to take a first look at the new generation of tyres and start shaping the development path that we will follow for the remainder of this year and next year.
“Of course, it is hard to read too much into this test as these are still very early days, but we have accumulated all the preliminary data that we wanted in good weather conditions, so thank you very much to Renault and to Sergey for their availability.”
Next year, Formula 2 will be the first of the F1-linked categories to make the switch, with testing for that change beginning earlier this year.