Pirelli Director of Motorsport Mario Isola has explained why it suffered with a shortage of data from its Formula 1 test at Mugello this week.
The Italian giants are preparing for the forthcoming 2026 season, complete with brand-new regulations, by testing with ‘mule’ cars fitted with next year’s tyres.
At Mugello, the test was due to be primarily focusing on Hard compounds, with Ferrari and Haas taking to the track.
But rainfall left Pirelli and the teams to fit Intermediate and Wet tyres to their respective cars, curtailing the work it had planned.
“Unfortunately, the weather didn’t help,” Isola later commented.
“That’s a shame, as Mugello is not just a wonderful circuit, but also very demanding on tyres and it would have been useful to get in some consistent running to define the hardest compounds.
“Now we will have to finish the work of analysing the little data we collected over these two days and cross-reference it with that from previous sessions, in order to reach the necessary conclusions.
“As for the softer compounds, we still have two more days of testing after the Mexico City Grand Prix to finalise their homologation.
“If we want to look for positives, at least we were able to test the wet weather tyres on a real track, gathering data and insights which will be useful for medium to long term development.
“Finally, I’d like to thank Haas and Scuderia Ferrari for their cooperation over these past two days.”
Ferrari ran an altered version of its current SF-25 with Charles Leclerc and Zhou Guanyu at the wheel, the latter taking the place of Lewis Hamilton, who withdrew due to the health concerns of his pet dog, Roscoe.
The Chinese driver set a 1:22.012s, having only been able to complete a handful of laps on dry tyres.
Haas ran a mule VF-24 with Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon, and handed its VF-23 to former Romain Grosjean, in his first appearance in an F1 car since his fiery crash at Bahrain five years ago.
READ MORE – Romain Grosjean completes farewell F1 test with Haas
Discussion about this post