The last Japanese Grand Prix was no surprise in strategic terms. Like Australia and China, the winning plan was to run with a single pit stop, a strategy that hurts particularly at Suzuka, a circuit traditionally hard on tyres. Pirelli did not like it.
Facing a flood of criticisms aimed at Pirelli, its head of competition Mario Isola revealed that the Italian factory is working on a plan to prevent Formula 1 races from becoming one-stoppers: to use softer tyres. It may seem obvious, but it is a scenario that has already existed in F1 and has sabotaged itself in the past.
Pirelli Does Not Like One-Stop Races
Three Grands Prix this season and the same winning strategy: one stop. If Pirelli has historically been known for being rock-hard, the new compounds this year have shattered any scale: it feels as though drivers only pit because it is mandatory by the rules, but if not they could finish the race without changing tyres.
“We are studying the possibility of going softer on some circuits”, said Mario Isola, the head of competition at Pirelli. The Italian admits that although they have already sent the draft for all races to the teams, “we can modify it if the FIA agrees. There is a possibility to become softer.”
In fact, Pirelli were very soft tyres in Formula 1 during its early years. In the three-year span between 2011 and 2013, the first three years of Pirelli in the world championship, we saw soft compounds, many pit stops and strategic variety, until mid-2013 there was an unannounced change of tyres and the hard-tyre era began.
The problem at the time was that drivers and teams constantly talked about the high wear of Pirelli tyres to explain race strategies, a publicity that did not please the Italian supplier. In fact, it even led to an unwritten rule that there could be no public criticism of Pirelli, and the Silverstone 2013 scandal did the rest.
Pirelli this year had already eliminated the C6, the softest, from its range, but now misses it. According to Isola, “if the cars are much faster, the load on the tyres is also greater. That may make our choice for the final races the right one, without the need for changes.”
We will see if the remedy of using softer tyres gets implemented by Pirelli and slightly improves Formula 1 racing.
Images | Alpine, McLaren
