Pirelli unveiled its new tyres for the 2012 season on Wednesday morning at the Abu Dhabi circuit, with minor changes to the markings and compound colours.
Whilst the hard, medium, soft and super soft will remain silver, white, yellow and red, the intermediate and full wet tyre will now be marked by a green and blue sidewall.
Pirelli expects the compounds to be much closer in terms of pace, with just six to eight tenths between each per lap. This has been achieved by softening all but the super soft, as Paul Hembery explained to The F1 Times.
“For 2012 we will have some new compounds and also a new profile for the tyres: the idea is to reduce the performance gap between the compounds in order to make the racing even closer,” said the company’s motorsport director.
“Generally speaking, all the compounds are softer. The 2012 hard tyre is much closer to last year’s medium compound. These are some of the quickest tyres that we have ever produced and they are definitely more biased towards performance. In spite of that, the degradation rate has actually been improved, and we’re still aiming to see between two and three pit stops at every race. The gaps between the compounds are also much closer, which should lead to some interesting race strategies.”
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