Reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton says he has few positive comments to make about Pirelli’s 2019 Formula 1 tyres, and feels the updated naming system is “confusing”.
Pirelli has tweaked its rubber this year by introducing the thinner gauge tread that was used as three Grands Prix (Spain, France, Britain) last season.
It has adopted such an approach in a bid to reduce the risk of overheating and blistering that arose on occasion.
Hamilton, though, was unconvinced that Pirelli’s 2019 specification is as suggested, believing “they did something else” in addition over the winter period.
“They’re a little bit hard,” said Hamilton. “I don’t really have a lot of good things to say about that so it’s best that I probably don’t say anything.
“I think as we get into the year it’s going to be a challenge.
“Everyone’s in the same boat. They’re more challenging this year than they were last.
“I think last year we had a tyre that was just OK, then we had the lower-gauge tyre – I think we had it somewhere like France and Silverstone – and that was a pretty good tyre.
“The simplest thing they could have done is just bring that to this year and they didn’t, they did something else.”
For 2019 Pirelli has abandoned its ‘rainbow’ colouring and naming system and instead will have three colours and the same compound names at each event.
The Hard tyre will be coloured white, the Medium yellow and the Soft red, with Pirelli choosing those three compounds from a reduced range of five for each event – with C1 the hardest and C5 the softest.
“We have all these different names of tyre – C5, C4, C3, C2, C1 – which for me personally is more confusing than all the colours we had,” quipped Hamilton.
“But anyway, we’ll get used to it and it will be the norm.”
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