Pirelli has confirmed its tyre compound selections for the first four races of the 2019 F1 season.
Compounds two, three and four have been selected for the opening round of the championship in Australia on March 25th, as well as the Chinese Grand Prix on April 15th and the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on April 29th. A harder tyre mix has been chosen for the Bahrain Grand Prix on April 8th, where compounds one, two and three have been chosen.Pirelli has dropped its previous tyre names and instead uses numbers to describe its different compounds. Compound one is the hardest tyre in its range.
The sport’s official tyre supplier has reduced its tyre range from seven compounds to five. Compound five, the softest tyre available, has not been nominated for any of the first four races.
The three tyres will be referred to as hard, medium and soft at each race. They will be coloured white, yellow and red respectively.
| 2019 tyres | 2018 tyres | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melbourne | C2 | C3 | C4 | Soft | Super-soft | Ultra-soft |
| Bahrain | C1 | C2 | C3 | Medium | Soft | Super-soft |
| Shanghai | C2 | C3 | C4 | Medium | Soft | Ultra-soft |
| Baku | C2 | C3 | C4 | Soft | Super-soft | Ultra-soft |
| Catalunya | Medium | Soft | Super-soft | |||
| Monte-Carlo | Super-soft | Ultra-soft | Hyper-soft | |||
| Montreal | Super-soft | Ultra-soft | Hyper-soft | |||
| Paul Ricard | Soft | Super-soft | Ultra-soft | |||
| Red Bull Ring | Soft | Super-soft | Ultra-soft | |||
| Silverstone | Hard | Medium | Soft | |||
| Hockenheimring | Medium | Soft | Ultra-soft | |||
| Hungaroring | Medium | Soft | Ultra-soft | |||
| Spa-Francorchamps | Medium | Soft | Super-soft | |||
| Monza | Medium | Soft | Super-soft | |||
| Singapore | Soft | Ultra-soft | Hyper-soft | |||
| Sochi | Super-soft | Ultra-soft | Hyper-soft | |||
| Suzuka | Medium | Soft | Super-soft | |||
| Circuit of the Americas | Soft | Super-soft | Ultra-soft | |||
| Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez | Super-soft | Ultra-soft | Hyper-soft | |||
| Interlagos | Medium | Soft | Super-soft | |||
| Yas Marina | Super-soft | Ultra-soft | Hyper-soft |
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Joao (@johnmilk)
10th December 2018, 14:02
I bet the C4 will be explosive
hunocsi (@hunocsi)
10th December 2018, 14:09
It will only have highlights though, not enough to last a full race.
ColdFly (@)
10th December 2018, 15:13
That explains why Pirelli developed a backup version of C4 ;)
@johnmilk, @hunocsi
Matteo (@m-bagattini)
10th December 2018, 14:31
@johnmilk badum-dshhh
MacLeod (@macleod)
11th December 2018, 16:27
During test tyre 5 probally C5 is between Hyper and Ultra so i think there is a c6 softer then Hyper?
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
10th December 2018, 14:22
Aside from the names, not an awful lot has changed here other than that the ‘step’ in the Shanghai allocations has been removed.
Matteo (@m-bagattini)
10th December 2018, 15:10
@keithcollantine A good way for us to get used to the new naming could be the inclusion of the “old” name in parenthesis, something like:
Melbourne, same as 2018
2018: C2 (Soft) C3 (Super-soft) C4 (Ultra-soft)
2019: Soft Super-soft Ultra-soft
Bahrain, same as 2018
2018: C1 (Medium) C2 (Soft) C3 (Super-soft)
2019: Medium Soft Super-soft
Shanghai, minor change
2018: C2 (Soft) C3 (Super-soft) C4 (Ultra-soft)
2019: Medium Soft Ultra-soft
Baku, same as 2018
2019: C2 (Soft) C3 (Super-soft) C4 (Ultra-soft)
2018: Soft Super-soft Ultra-soft
Matteo (@m-bagattini)
10th December 2018, 15:11
Ignore my comment, it may induce more confusion since compounds don’t match.
ColdFly (@)
10th December 2018, 15:16
just add a legend, @m-bagattini ;)
Medium = Hard
Soft = Medium
Super-soft = Soft
Jere (@jerejj)
10th December 2018, 14:42
I’m already starting to dislike this change even more than I thought I would. I was hopeful that the specific compound names would still be given out, but apparently, that isn’t going to be the case after all. C1, C2, C3, C4, and C5, they indicate nothing concerning the actual compounds behind them. Just tell me Melbourne’s combination is US-S-M since SS has been axed altogether. A stand on my point that I’ve been bringing up on previous posts concerning this topic: An entirely unnecessary change. ”If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
ColdFly (@)
10th December 2018, 15:00
But why stick with M S US HS, etc if the same named tyre has changed from one year to the next, @jerejj.
To me it was broken. There was confusion – driver X pits for Softs which is the hardest compound available – and at times even mistakes.
Not even to speak about ultra-softs being softer than super-softs; Superman is still visiting his shrink ;)
Jere (@jerejj)
10th December 2018, 15:54
@coldfly @m-bagattini @thekuna I beg to differ. I didn’t find the previous approach confusing nor complicated at all, in fact, I find this approach confusing as opposed to the previous one rather than the other way round.
Arkadiusz Kuna (@thekuna)
10th December 2018, 15:04
If your grading systems is supposed to be gradual and you end up with x types of “soft”, one medium and one hard, then I consider it broken.
The colors that also initially were a meaningful scale were also far from being a proper color scale now by any means after all the soft-type compounds introductions.
Matteo (@m-bagattini)
10th December 2018, 15:25
@jerejj actually, it was a broken system, the commentary was a mess. I think the best thing we can do is to learn the new system and start thinking with that system in mind instead of referring to the previous one.
Jere (@jerejj)
10th December 2018, 15:50
‘I stand’
Godwin Joseph (@godwin)
10th December 2018, 14:42
If you guys still don’t get it, check this out:
Godwin Joseph (@godwin)
10th December 2018, 14:43
If you guys still don’t get it, check this out:
https://twitter.com/Formula1_MotoGP/status/1072137475668262912?s=19
nase
10th December 2018, 14:44
Melbourne: Soft Medium Hard
Bahrain: Soft Medium Hard
Shanghai: Soft Medium Hard
Baku : Soft Medium Hard
…
ColdFly (@)
10th December 2018, 15:00
can’t wait for the rest of the season ;)
Chaitanya
10th December 2018, 15:07
Expect a boring races then.
BasCB (@bascb)
10th December 2018, 16:58
Exactly!
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
10th December 2018, 17:43
Missed opportunity. There’s should be no announcement at all. If F1 want more unpredictability they should not let the team knew which compound number they use for Soft-Medium-Hard.
Let them found out themselves on Friday and prepared for race and qualifying tyre strategies from there. It will push the team to run more laps on practice sessions.
Zsolt Hegedus (@tresz)
10th December 2018, 14:48
Interesting to see the hardest compound already used in Bahrain. I’m very eager to see how many drivers will choose to run on the hards that weekend.
Iosif (@afonic)
10th December 2018, 21:28
C1 is similar to the old medium from what I understand.
RB13
10th December 2018, 16:20
Racefans once again finding anything and everything to moan about. It’s a NUMBERED range of tyres it doesnt get any simpler than that. Much better than the old system with the silly ultra , hyper, super range. Felt like watching a game of killer instinct lol
DonSmee (@david-beau)
10th December 2018, 16:54
You old nags asked for it! See what you caused? Even more confusing now!
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
10th December 2018, 16:55
Any news on which compound they use on wet tyres? Intermediate-C2? Wet-C8?
Panagiotis Papatheodorou (@panagiotism-papatheodorou)
10th December 2018, 18:17
Somehow it feels more confusing.
Jimmi Cynic (@jimmi-cynic)
10th December 2018, 20:56
Agree, @panagiotism-papatheodorou.
They already had a simple, effective system before: Prime, Option and Sub-Optimal.
In Liberty’s drive to simplify F1 for their mythical masses of F1 newbies, they trivialize a highly technical pursuit.
Mark Thomson (@melthom)
10th December 2018, 21:13
Who said F1 was boring when we have all this excitement..sigh
Vaios (@vaiosp)
10th December 2018, 22:53
Right…
Well… For a new fan, a fan that is not following every single race or a fan that is not into technical details much, a simple Hard – Medium – Soft for every race seems fine… I mean it’s better than the previous mess of trying to figure out which one is the softest of all…
For everyone else though… I bet we will all refer to them as C1 to C5. Because conversation regarding which one and under which circumstances a given team can or cannot bring up to temperature will make no sense at all…
MaliceCooper
11th December 2018, 0:30
Why can’t they go with some nice simple descriptions instead? “Soft like a waterbed filled with trifle and molasses, tough and sticky like a Toffo left out in the sun, hard like an Alaskan triathlon with a badger up your jumper”