Pirelli taking modified soft compounds to Barcelona

Formula 1 tyre supplier Pirelli has announced that it is in the process of transporting modified Soft and Super Soft compound tyres to the Circuit de Catalunya ahead of four days’ testing, commencing on Friday. The Barcelona test will be the teams’ last chance to trial all four Slick compounds (Hard, Medium, Soft and Super Soft) at the same time before the season starts.

Following the first two tests in Valencia and Jerez, Pirelli has elected to make changes to its Soft and Super Soft PZero tyres, with the modifications arriving thanks to feedback from the teams and much data analysis by the company’s technicians. From the Bahrain test, only the Medium and Hard compounds will be on offer.

“We managed to collect a lot of data from our test with all the teams in Jerez and we’ve been very busy evaluating it to see what we can learn,” Pirelli Motorsport Director Paul Hembery explained on Thursday morning.

“What’s interesting is that the emphasis during testing is changing; as the teams get up to speed with their new cars the work has become much more focussed, with some longer runs and potential race setups being evaluated.

“We’ve also got some evolutions of the Super Soft and Soft tyres, which was always part of our development schedule.”