Pirelli is to extend its tyre range of compounds

Formula One’s sole tyre manufacturer Pirelli is planning to introduce a new tyre compound for the 2018 World Championship season. The company intends to create a bigger variety in race strategies after this year was dominated by one-stop-races.

The Italian tyre manufacturer had to withstand harsh criticism for its 2017 tyre compounds This year’s dry-weather compounds have been durable, in fact too durable which have led to many one-stop-races so far this season. Even the softest compound, the ultrasoft which made an appearance more times than last year proved to suffer hardly any wear.

The criticism urged Pirelli in the mid-season to drop the hard compound which is the hardest compound from its range after several drivers called it „unusable” on the high-speed Silverstone race track which is traditionally a demanding circuit for the tyres. The Milan-based manufacturer decided it won’t use the hard tyre any more during the second half of the season. Pirelli argued previously that it expected the aerodynamical development of the cars would put enormous demand on the tyres towards the end of the season.

The new compound will be the ultra-ultrasoft which will be one degree softer than the actual softest, the ultrasoft. It remains to be seen which work Pirelli will carry out on their actual compounds because all the harder compounds need to be addressed if Pirelli want to increase the tyre wear.