by SIMONE PELUSO
The “Munich question” on strategies burned by the red flag on the first lap it raised an interesting comparison in the Formula 1 paddock, with Pirelli which is already working on some improvement ideas for the future (starting from 2025).
It is now a fact that the number of city circuits on the calendar, characterized by road asphalts with little grip and impact on the tyres, is constantly increasing. Of course, Monte Carlo still represents a unique event and a particular challenge, but many of its characteristics can also be found in other tracks such as Singapore, Baku, Miami, Las Vegas and the future Madrid.
The C6 compound arrives
For this reason Pirelli is already studying a new compound C6, even softer compared to the five currently used this season which rotate depending on the tracks to make up the Soft-Medium-Hard range available to the teams during a race weekend.
Pirelli has already carried out tests this week at Paul Ricard, specifying however that this is not a specific solution designed for Monaco, but valid for a good part of the city circuits on the calendar. The objective is clear: to give the teams the opportunity to be able choose different one- or two-stop strategies, but equally competitive.
“We have gathered a lot of good information for defining the tire range for next season – declared the manager of Pirelli Motorsport, Mario Islandin an interview given to RACER – We have studied compounds to reduce overheating, also working on a new C6, even softer and more suitable for the growing number of street circuits. We then moved to a softer range looking for the right compromise between less overheating and the current level of degradationbut it is not simple because the two elements are connected.”
Objective: diversify strategies
“Our idea was based on taking into account the calendar and the tracks where we will race – added Isola – Obviously the goal we must achieve is to encourage a mix of one-stop and two-stop strategies and for this reason we need to move to a range of softer compounds.”
“The request we received was to reduce overheating. The risk is that if overheating is reduced there will be fewer stops, because obviously you can do more laps without having high degradation. If we go in this direction, we will need softer compounds in the range to have an adequate selection for each event. We recently thought about and tested a new C6 compound at Paul Ricard, softer than the C5, which could open up different strategies. It’s the first attempt, but the idea is to go in this direction and probably approve six compounds as early as next year”.
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