George Russell, Williams, Circuit of the Americas, 2019

New F1 tyres for 2020 are “no better” and feel “weird”, say drivers

2019 F1 season

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The prototype tyres for the 2020 F1 season which were tested by drivers during practice at the Circuit of the Americas received a largely negative response.

Teams were given extra, unmarked sets of the new compounds to run during today’s two practice sessions, which were run in unusually cool conditions. McLaren’s Carlos Sainz Jnr, who did seven laps on the prototype tyre in first practice, but said it was “not very productive for me.”

“We tried to measure sure those tyres with a lot of sensors,” Sainz explained, but said they “felt very weird and very bad.”

Haas’s Romain Grosjean wasn’t impressed either after doing six laps on the new rubber. “If you put the stickers on the side of them I don’t see the difference,” he said.

“We used the two proto[types] in the morning, had a good check. They not any better, so a bit disappointing in that aspect.”

Kimi Raikkonen covered just four laps on the prototypes. “We only did a few laps on it,” he explained. “It felt very normal, not an awful lot different to what we have now.”

The Mercedes drivers spent much of first practice running on the prototype rubber. Lewis Hamilton, who did 13 laps on the tyres, said he wasn’t allowed to discuss their findings. “I’ve got to hold back and not say too much at the moment,” he said.

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18 comments on “New F1 tyres for 2020 are “no better” and feel “weird”, say drivers”

  1. How many more years are they going to supply F1? 4?
    Jeez…

    1. I hope those 18″ tyres starting from 2021 are better than what we saw during much of Pirelli era.

    2. While pirelli hasn’t done great job I think it is also worth understanding that these cars are probably the most difficult cars ever in f1 to make tires for. Extremely heavy and massive amounts of downforce means the tires need to be able to handle huge stresses during braking, cornering and acceleration. Because the downforce levels are so high it also means there is bigger difference between the top teams and the others when it comes to the tire loads the tires see through a run. A fact which is also more exaggerated by the huge gap between formula 1 and formula 1.5 teams. Then you have fia who have very precise requirements for pirelli about the tires. How much they should lose grip per lap, target speeds and so forth. With these factors in mind it is very difficult to make a tire that works in f1 and f1.5 cars. Of course pirelli seems to be struggling as well which adds to the issues.

    3. I think it’s the biggest emperor has no clothes thing in f1 at the moment, how long are we going to pretend that pirelli have the technical know-how to make good formula 1 tyres? They’re basically doing it because noone else wants the job

  2. Tooo many.
    What I don’t understand is that they, as a Tyre Company, get so much negative press out of the F1 program that spills over into the normal commercial sector.
    If I need tyres, and I currently do, would I buy Pirellis …. likely not. It shouldn’t matter, but it does.
    To be totally correct, it’s the car that needs tyres.

    1. I had pirellis, they were great 2016-2019, now new Continentals are not as good as worn Pirellis.

      But hey, that is on the road. In F1 the tires are real crap.

      LMP1 cars have more downforce, more mass and Michelin can cope. Only reason Pirelli sucks is because they are given stupid parameters to follow. This designed to degrade business is what is making them horrible.

      Just put some LMP1 tires on and see what happens.

  3. Let me guess, the Mercedes was amazing on the new tyres?

    1. To be fair, the Mercedes are amazing on most tires cos you know, their car is within the Top 2 in the sport, at a minimum.

      1. @yaru, as you say, the idea that “competitive car is competitive on largely similar tyres” isn’t exactly a shocking revelation.

    2. Yes, unbelievably amazing. They were regularly setting times that kept them between 12th and 15th all session.

    3. @aliced instead of your usual ill informed guesswork why don’t you try actually watching F1 instead of just spouting rubbish on the internet about things you clearly don’t understand.

  4. We don”t need unmarked tyres
    We don”t need no wear control
    No new compounds on the race tracks
    Hey, Pirelli, leave us fans alone
    All in all it’s another guy in the wall
    All in all it’s Grosjean again in the wall

    (Followed by a quiet hybrid engine solo and FIA strategy group choir)

    1. LOL, Pinkus Floydus :)

    2. Most excellent Sergey

    3. This is excellent.

  5. Ham could have just bsessed something, he didn’t props for that.
    Merc and Ham have mastered the tyres, no wonder they never complain.

    1. Hehe. Ham is now a tire nursing savant and gentle lady massage specialist.

  6. And they no longer have the ‘Only doing what they have been asked to do’ excuse to hide behind because they no longer have a mandate to produce high degredation tires with the only influence from F1/FIA been the dimensions & rules governing how many sets are available over a weekend.

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