Pirelli have confirmed that they will make changes to their entire 2013 tyre range in a bid to reign in the excessive tyre wear seen throughout the opening five races.
The move was largely prompted by complaints after the Spanish Grand Prix which saw an average of four stops per driver. Pirelli says it aims for two to three.
The company will take elements of the 2012 tyres and combine them with the construction of the 2013 tyres – similar to what they did with the hard tyre prior to the Spanish GP, but to a greater extent.
Pirelli’s Paul Hembery explained that they were caught out by the development rate of the top teams over the winter, which has led to greater stresses going through the tyres, leading to increased wear.
“With limited testing time, it’s clear now that our original 2013 tyre range was probably too performance-orientated for the current regulations,” he said.
“We developed the 2013 tyres on the basis of careful simulations that were, however, not sufficient, taking into account the improved speed of cars (up to 3 seconds per lap).”
Hembery is confident the changes will also reduce the number of delaminations seen in the last two races.
“We’ve also taken this step to avoid the delaminations that were caused by track debris. It’s important to point out that these delaminations, which occur when the tread comes off, do not compromise the safety of the tyres as the core structure of the tyre is not affected in any way, helping drivers to complete the lap and to change the damaged tyres safely.
“These delaminations were due to damage from debris that overheated the tread.”
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