After the race weekend in which the Japanese Grand Prix took place, Pirelli and Formula 1 stopped for a few more days in Suzuka to carry out a specific test session dedicated to tire development for next season.
As per practice, each team makes itself available during the championship, or even before the start of the season, to carry out some test sessions with the Milanese manufacturer. In this case, there were two teams supporting Pirelli's work at Suzuka, namely Sauber and Racing Bulls.
The program for the session included comparative tests of different compounds and constructions in view of the next season: in particular, the resolution of a new construction and a family of compounds that allow a significant reduction in overheating is being finalized. At the wheel of the two cars, one for each team, today were Valtteri Bottas for Sauber and Daniel Ricciardo for Racing Bulls.
Valtteri Bottas, Kick Sauber C44, Pirelli test at Suzuka
Photo by: Pirelli
The changing weather conditions, with the rain falling in the first part of the morning and then with the sun shining again in the final part of the day, also allowed us to experiment with new solutions for wet tyres.
It is no mystery that Pirelli is also intent on developing new intermediate tires that do not need to be heated using tyrewarmers before use on the track. In reality, their possible introduction had already been evaluated last year, but the teams said they were against it, because they first wanted to evaluate how the full wets would behave without tyrewarmers. However, Pirelli is working on several fronts, because even on extremely wet tires the intention is to reduce any heating phenomena.
This latter objective is also one of the priorities of the slick development program for next year and at Suzuka, a particularly harsh track for tyres, work is being done to identify the best solutions for the harder compounds.
Daniel Ricciardo, RB F1 Team VCARB 01, Pirelli test at Suzuka
Photo by: Pirelli
The rain that fell early in the morning on the Japanese circuit allowed the use of wet tires in the first hour on the track. Bottas on the C44 and Ricciardo on the VCARB 01 carried out their first runs with the new intermediate and Full Wet tires when the air and asphalt temperatures were both around 14°C. Starting from 10am it was possible to start riding on the slicks. During the day, temperatures reached a maximum of 17°C for the ambient temperatures and 29°C for the asphalt temperatures.
Bottas and Ricciardo completed 133 and 106 laps each respectively (17 and 16 in the wet). The first's best time was 1'34''002 while the Australian stopped the clock on his best lap at 1'34''815. The lap times collected are obviously not very representative due to the different tire development programs on the two cars.
“For my part, the first day of testing took place as planned: we followed the entire plan of the day, collecting a lot of useful data for Pirelli on next year's tyres. The weather was a bit uncertain in the morning, after the heavy rain, but it actually worked in our favor, because it also allowed us to test the intermediate tyres”, said Valtteri Bottas, who will return to the track tomorrow too.
Valtteri Bottas, Kick Sauber C44, Pirelli test at Suzuka
Photo by: Pirelli
“Then, once the track was dry enough, we continued with our program, doing several laps and trying different compounds. Overall, it was a positive and productive day, looking forward to resuming work tomorrow,” the Finn added.
Ricciardo was also on the same line, who ran with the Racing Bulls testing the solutions for 2025: “It was a productive day of testing with Pirelli, we tested some 2025 compounds. Unfortunately, this morning the dry session was limited to due to the weather conditions, but the positive note is that it allowed us to examine both the extreme wet compounds and the intermediate ones, which we don't use often. The afternoon program ran smoothly: we completed the planned work and were able to provide Pirelli with some useful data. Personally, it was nice to do some laps at Suzuka after the race weekend.”
During the day, 12 different specifications were tested for more than 1200 kilometers traveled in total. Testing will resume tomorrow and, at least on paper, the sun should shine again: for Sauber there will once again be Bottas, while at the wheel of Racing Bulls it will be Yuki Tsunoda's turn.
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