Pirelli look set to drop the hard compound tyre completely, instead, opting to use the medium compound on more aggressive track surfaces.
This will be welcome news for Ferrari who have struggled to get the hard tyre up to temperature and have therefore suffered during the races in which the tyre was allocated.
Pirelli motorsport director, Paul Hembery, denied they were favouring the Italian outfit though when probed on the subject: “No. There are some compounds that best suit some people, in other cases it depends on the track or the weather,” he told AS. “It’s very difficult to generalise.”
He explained the reason behind the decision to drop the hard compound was mainly because it’s too hard and the medium is of sufficient hardness to replace it for good.
“I don’t think we’ll see the hard compound again,” he is quoted as saying by Autosport. “I think it’s probably too hard and that the medium is proving sufficiently robust for the aggressive circuits we’ve still got to come. So I don’t think we’ll be going [down] the hard route.”
He also revealed that it wouldn’t be used at all next year, instead the medium would become the hard and a new compound would be developed to replace it.
“Probably next season the medium will become the hard. We’ll probably slot something in between the current softs and mediums – We want to keep about one second between each.
“The super soft and soft gap is about right to be honest, because you’ve got a one second speed advantage but you’ve got a clear degradation and limitation on use.
“If we could replicate that now with a new medium and a new hard then I think we’ll be well placed.”
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