Pirelli completes its first test of 2025 with McLaren

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Formula One's sole tyre manufacturer Pirelli has completed its first running of 2025, trying out its new wet and intermediate tyres for the 2026 F1 season with the reigning world champion team McLaren.

The Milan-based tyre manufacturer has completed its two-day test session at the Paul Ricard track which revolved around the development of the next generation of rain tyres.

Pirelli worked with McLaren at the Le Castellet circuit this week, putting its focus on the wet and intermediate tyres for the 2026 season, when the regulations will stipulate the same 18” rim diameter as the current ones, but with a slightly smaller width and external diameter on both the front and rear axles.

McLaren and Pirelli used the 3.463 kilometre long 2A version of the Le Castellet track. On the first day Oscar Piastri completed 120 laps, with a best time of 1'07''008, while the second day saw Lando Norris complete 123 laps, with a best time of 1'07''956. Between them, they covered 840 kilometres, all on a wet track.

The weather was dry on the first day while the second day featured intermittent rain. The track’s surface was artificially irrigated with water tankers and sprinklers in order to ensure the track conditions were as uniform as possible to allow the most effective evaluation of the test data gathered with the various prototypes.

Reflecting on the two day testing, Pirelli's motorsport director Mario Isola noted: "The first test session of 2025 proved very useful. When testing wet weather tyres it’s not easy to consistently reproduce the same track conditions to get reliable data, but over these past two days we were able to acquire plenty of information that will be vital when it comes to defining the new intermediate and extreme wet tyres.

"It’s going to be a very busy start to the season for those of our engineers working on development: after this test at Paul Ricard, we have a further two test sessions in the coming two weeks. Both of them are in Spain and will focus on dry weather tyres.

"On 4 and 5 February, McLaren and Ferrari will be on track at the Barcelona-Catalunya circuit and then, on 12 and 13 at Jerez de la Frontera, Alpine will be working with us on both days, while McLaren and Mercedes will do one day each," Isola concluded.