Pirelli to race new soft compound at Interlagos 21 Nov 2011
Drivers at this weekend’s Formula 1 Grande Premio Petrobras do Brasil 2011 will have the choice of Pirelli’s soft and medium dry tyres. However, the soft will be a previously unraced compound that was tested by the teams during last week’s Abu Dhabi young driver test and during Friday practice at the Nurburgring in July.
During Friday practice at Interlagos, drivers will also have two extra sets of an experimental hard tyre which has already been trialled by Lucas di Grassi and Pirelli’s Toyota TF109 car in private tests at Jerez and Barcelona. The tyre is considerably softer than the current hard and the results will be fed back to Pirelli’s engineers to aid development for next season.
“Preparations for the 2012 season are well underway, so it will be really interesting to hear the thoughts of the drivers about the new hard and soft tyres that we will be trying out in Brazil,” said Paul Hembery, Pirelli’s motorsport director. “We’ve already collected plenty of information on the new soft tyre from the young driver test, so it will be useful to compare that to real race data.
“It’s important not to get too distracted by the names of the tyres though: what we’re calling a ‘soft’ for now could end up as a medium for next year, as that’s what the testing process is all about. In general, the tyres are going to be less conservative next year as the second half of this season has shown how well the teams have understood our product, allowing us to make some reasonably aggressive choices.”
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