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| Illustration: Giorgio Piola |
The new tire's construction combines aspects of the older 2012 version with current, or similar, rubber. This was very much wanted by Red Bull who have had some trouble adjusting to this year's Pirellis.
The 2013 spec tires were built with a steel belt while 2012 tires features a Kevlar belt. Ironically, while the change in spec is being "justified" on the grounds of safety, the steel belt ensures the tire will not fully deflate allowing drivers a measure of control in case of de-lamitation.
Pirelli have announced it will provide each team with two sets of the new construction tires during practice in Canada so all teams can have a chance to get acquainted with them ahead of a new introduction at the British GP June 30th.
This as Lotus, Force India and Marussia have joined Red Bull and Ferrari in their protest over the testing done by Mercedes after the Spanish GP. The FIA's International Tribunal could take as long as a month and a half to rule on any penalties it might inflict on Mercedes-AMG.
Supposedly they have been doing this since the beginning of the season.:
ReplyDelete@adamcooperf1 I can back that: here's a picture of Rosberg's car during Melbourne FP, with an RR fitted RL: formule1.nl/media/uploads/…— andae23 (@andae23) May 29, 2013
Indeed, on Adam Cooper's blog http://adamcooperf1.com/2013/05/28/analysis-how-pirelli-montreal-change-will-handicap-tyre-swapping-teams/
ReplyDeleteThere was an article somewhere saying that many teams found that they could extend tire life on the steel belted tires by swapping the left and right rear tires as they are handed and then optimizing the setups accordingly. Apparently Merc didn't start doing this until last weekend...
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