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Pirelli's first
official test of 2011 as exclusive supplier to the Formula One World
Championship has concluded successfully in Valencia, with the teams
getting a first taste of how the Italian rubber will work on their new cars
and a clear idea of how Pirelli tyres could spice up the show.
 Pirelli brought all four slick tyres to the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in
Valencia – supersoft, soft, medium and hard – but with cold conditions under
10 degrees centigrade in the morning, warming up to around 18 degrees in the
afternoon, most of the teams elected just to use the three softer
compounds.
Both the intermediate and wet tyres were also brought to Valencia, with
weather forecasts earlier in the week predicting rain. However, conditions
remained dry during all three days of the test, meaning that the wet weather
tyres were hardly used.
With a number of new cars being launched in Valencia, the teams concentrated
on initial shakedown runs to get used to all this year's innovations such as
the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS), moveable rear wings and of course
Pirelli's new PZero tyres.
Following on from the first official test in Abu Dhabi last year, Pirelli
brought the latest evolutions of its tyres for the first of three official
tests in Spain, which will be followed by
a final group test in Bahrain prior to the start of the Formula One season
there on March 13.
For the first time, the 12 teams also had the chance to work with the
Pirelli tyre engineers assigned to them for the rest of the season and try
out a wider range of the Italian tyres. Many of the teams also ran new
drivers for the first time, making the three days of the Valencia test a
steep learning curve for all concerned.
Although the cold conditions and tight layout of Valencia's permanent
circuit – which is mostly used for motorbike racing – will not be
representative of the rest of the season, drivers had a valuable opportunity
to gather their initial impressions of the Pirelli rubber.
They all agreed that knowing how to manage the tyres would be a key to
success in the 2011 season and that the characteristics of Pirelli's new
tyres could make for some even more exciting races during the coming year.
Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery commented: "First and foremost,
we've enjoyed perfect reliability over the three days, which has enabled the
teams to get on with their test programmes at a crucial time of year as they
launch their new cars. Naturally, they've all been running a very wide range
of different configurations and set-ups here, so there's no point looking
too closely at the times. What's more important is that the feedback we've
received from the drivers and teams so far has been very positive, and it's
been a great pleasure to work with them all. It's early days, but we believe
that the teams have started to see now that our tyres are quite different to
what they had before.
In line with our brief, it's no longer going to be possible to run virtually
an entire race on one set of tyres, so I think everyone will appreciate how
our PZeros can help to provide even more exciting races in the future."
The next Formula One group test takes place next week in Jerez from February
10-13, to which Pirelli will once more bring the entire range of new PZero
tyres. |
