Pirelli: The 2017 season in numbers

Pirelli revealed its annual statistic of the 2017 F1 championship. The Milan-based company completed its 26th season in Formula One in 2017 and has been the sport's sole tyre supplier since the 2011 championship season.

Pirelli was founded by Giovanni Battista Pirelli in Milan in 1872. The company has been listed on the Milan Stock Exchange since 1922. Pirelli has been owned by a consortium led by the Chinese state-owned enterprise ChemChina since 2015. The Ren Jianxin-led company is one of the largest tyre manufacturers behind Bridgestone, Michelin, Continental and Goodyear. It is present in over 160 countries, has 19 manufacturing sites in 13 countries. It has been sponsoring sport competitions since 1907.

It was part at the time Formula One was born in 1950. It supplied the sport between 1950 and 1958. It then returned in 1981 and stayed until 1991 with the exception of 1987 and 1988 when Goodyear was the sole tyre supplier of F1. The Italian manufacturer emerged on the scene in 2011 again when it took over the dominant force on the tyre front from the Japanese Bridgestone.

Pirelli has completed 340 races since 1950, won 181 races, scored 184 pole positions, 12 drivers won the world title on its products and 7 constructor titles were won on Pirelli rubber.

Pirelli supplied a total of 38788 tyres during 2017. Of these, 33520 were supplied for races while the other 5268 for the winter testing and the in-season test sessions. The total number of tyres was about 5000 less than in 2016 which was partly due to the decrease of number of races from 21 to 20.

Out of these tyres, 25572 were slick while 13016 were rain or intermediate tyres.

During the season, excluding the tests, Esteban Ocon ran the most on the hard compound with a total of 74km. On the medium, Lance Stroll is the record-keeper with 587km. Lewis Hamilton completed 4696km on the soft compound. Sergio Perez covered a total of 6261km on the supersoft. McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne was the most diligent on the ultrasoft. Williams gained th most experience on the non-dry tyres. Stroll ran a total of 433km on the intermediate while his team mate Felipe Massa covered 242km on the wet-weather tyres.

Pirelli’s hards, the hardest compound of the range hardly made any appearance this year. Drivers only covered a total of 1549km on that compound before it was scrapped altogether for the second half of the year. In contrast to that, the medium was used on 20259km, the soft on 94893km, the supersoft on 118729km, the ultrasoft on 83465km. Even the wet-weather tyres covered a longer distance: the intermediate 7089km, the wet 3186km.

Pit stop numbers
Teams completed a total of 533 pit stops during the season. Out of these, seven were penalty stops (6 drive-through and one stop-and-go penalty). This number makes an average of 26.7 per race and 1.5 per driver in each race.

The Austrian and Azerbaijan Grand Prix stand out in terms of pit stops. Drivers visited the pit stop the most frequently in Baku with a total of 41 stops while only 18 pit stops were recorded on the short Red Bull Ring.

Race lengths and speeds
The highest speed with the 2017 Pirelli P Zero Formula 1 Tyre was reached by Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel during the Mexican Grand Prix. The quadruple world champion clocked the eye-catching speed of 362.4kph.

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was the longest race with a total period of 2 hours 33 minutes 55.753 seconds.

Unsurprisingly, the Italian Grand Prix was the shortest race. The famous Monza-race was completed over a period of 1 hour 15 minutes and 33.312 seconds.

In terms of ambient and asphalt temperatures, Bahrain and Hungary stand out. The highest asphalt temperatures recorded during a race weekend was measured in Bahrain with 56 Celsius degree while 55 Celsius degree was the highest value during a Grand Prix which was recorded in Hungary.

Hungary brought the highest ambient temperature recorded during a race with a value of 33 Celsius degree.

Pirelli carried out various trials on its 2018 tyres during post-GP testing, post-season testing and also during extra test sessions. 198 different prototypes were tested. Of these, 147 were slick, 18 intermediates and 33 rain tyres.

Eight different venues served as test locations: Abu Dhabi, Barcelona, Budapest, Magny-Cours, Mexico City, Paul Ricard, Sakhir and Silverstone.

Red Bull completed the longest distance on the 2018 prototypes with a total of 2637km followed by McLaren’s 2350 km. Mercedes covered 1974km, Ferrari 1546km on the 2018 rubber ‘slippers’.

Pirelli’s motorhome is probably the most welcoming out of all. The hospitality members always warmly welcome the media and sponsor guests. 15900 meals were served during the tests and the Grand Prix weekends. 14400 litres of water were drunk during the year. 870kg pasta and 320kg rice were cooked by Pirelli. For its meals, the chefs used 120kg of Parmesan cheese and 520l of olive oil. 55 different dessert recipes were tried out. Interestingly, only 400 pizzas were made. 30200 coffees were served over the stretch of the year.