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The 2022 Formula 1 season has
got underway in Barcelona with Pirelli’s new 18-inch tyres. An initial three
days of pre-season testing took place in ambient temperatures that ranged
from six to 21 degrees centigrade, while track temperature varied between
seven and 31 degrees. The drivers ran on a dry track for the first two days
as well as the morning of the third day, while on Friday afternoon the
surface was artificially dampened in order to test the wet-weather tyres.
The fastest overall time of the test was set by Mercedes driver Lewis
Hamilton, who did a 1m19.138s in the last few laps on Friday.
MARIO ISOLA, PIRELLI MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR
“We can be pleased with how the three days of testing went, which of course
represented the debut of our 18-inch tyres on these new single-seaters, with
all the tyre testing up to now having been carried out using only mule cars.
The teams and drivers all focussed on gaining confidence with the new models
and finding the best possible set up, so it’s too early to talk about the
performance gap between the compound or degradation levels. This explains
why the C2 and C3 compounds in the middle of the range, which are most often
used here in Montmelo, were run more often than the others during the test.
Setting the fastest flying lap obviously wasn’t the main objective, but we
still saw some interesting lap times; around a second off the quickest race
lap from last year’s Spanish Grand Prix. This makes it probable that these
cars will end up even faster than their predecessors by the end of the
season.” |
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