Pirelli: 2017 F1 tyres degrade enough to keep strategy alive

F1's tyre supplier has revamped its products for this season, with its wider tyres moving away from the overheating characteristics that forced drivers to look after their rubber so much over recent years.

The change has led to concerns about tyres now lasting a full race distance and removing the prospect of much strategy variation, but Pirelli says that is not necessarily the case.

And while it expects there will be fewer stops, and some one stop races, it believes there are still good prospects for decent racing too.

Pirelli F1 racing manager Mario Isola said: "There will be less pitstops than last year for sure. One stop race depends on the degradation level because if you have lower deg and a tyre that can run for a good number of laps – there is no point to change tyres.

"But I don't think less pitstops means less show. Maybe yes. But maybe not. It is not a direct correlation."

Still degradation

Although drivers were able to eke out long stints on tyres during Barcelona testing, Isola says that it is wrong to suggest that there is zero degradation now.

He said the target Pirelli set out to achieve was a 2-second drop off in performance over 10 laps – and its current predictions were of a 1.5-second reduction in pace.

Balanced against the increase in pace cars get as they burn off fuel, it should in theory make F1 cars one-second per lap slower every 10 laps.

However, that figure would likely increase as performance is added to the cars and extra downforce puts more loading through the rubber.

Isola said that fears of drivers stopping on the final lap for their mandatory stop was probably too much.

"This happens for sure if you have degradation that is close to zero – and if you have three compounds with different laptimes," he said. "But the request is to have different degradation – not zero degradation."

Pushing hard

Isola was optimistic that data from testing had indicated that the thermal degradation characteristics of the rubber had also been banished – which opened up the prospect of drivers being able to push harder when following other cars.

"The overheating was something that was a clear request, as drivers didn't want overheating when they were following another car," he said.

"They would lose grip, they would overheat the surface and they could not fight again. That [to remove that behaviour] was the target, and the feedback was positive in this direction.

"It is maybe not zero overheating, but it is a big step compared to last year. Deg should not be zero because otherwise you don't have any crossover.

"We need to have a delta lap time and a degradation that makes it possible to do different strategy, and in this case you keep the show."