Pirelli ready to introduce 18-inch tires as early as 2016

Pirelli took advantage of the second day of testing at Silverstone to have Charles Pic’s Lotus E22 try out its wheels equipped with 18-inch rims. While such a change is potentially scheduled for 2017, Paul Hembery, Pirelli’s motorsport director, indicated that the Italian manufacturer could bring forward the introduction of these tires to 2016.

« The regulations speak of 2017 for the moment, but we feel ready for 2016 if they want to move it forward by a year, » he stated to our British colleagues at Autosport. « The priority today was to show people what a current F1 would look like with a wheel change. »

Now, you have images and we will provide the people from the Strategic Group and the F1 Commission with images so they can make a decision on future rules based on actual pieces rather than computer renderings.

If the announced goal was therefore, above all, aesthetic, Pirelli also explained that adapting the 2014 Formula 1 cars to these larger tires wasn’t very complicated, with Lotus making some minor changes to the suspensions, among other things. Moreover, the Milan firm also stated that the wheels provided for this test were designed to pass all the FIA’s safety tests, thus forming a basis for their development.

“We were not seeking performance,” asserts Paul Hembery. “We confirmed what we knew, namely that the front tires will make corner entry very aggressive. The driver will have a very direct response from the front tires.”

Then, the Briton proceeds to list the parameters that could change: « We know there will be significant variations in pressure until we conduct more detailed studies on how to control it. We know there will be a lot of sensitivity regarding camber. So, we’ve just confirmed things we know and the areas in which [we could] work in the future if this is the path the sport takes. »

In a statement provided to the media, Pirelli further clarifies the technical aspects. Thus, the width of the wheels tested this Wednesday is the same as that of the 13-inch tires (245 mm at the front and 325 mm at the rear) but the diameter is larger by 30 mm. Both types of tires weigh approximately the same because, even though the diameter is larger, the sidewall is smaller. Including the rim, the total weight is still 4 kilograms more.

The key technical advantage of an 18-inch tire is a rigid sidewall that helps maintain the structural rigidity of the tire and also makes it easier to maintain constant pressure, as there is less air inside the tire. The new tire is physically larger, making it much closer to the Ultra High Performance tires that exist for production cars, allowing for greater technological transfer.

From a more global perspective, the question of switching to an 18-inch tire seems crucial in the context of a possible return of competition between manufacturers in F1. Indeed, last year, in August, in the columns of the newspaper Le Figaro, Pascal Couasnon, director of competition at Michelin, had stated: « If F1 is ready to switch to the 18-inch rim format, we’ll run to it! » This shift seems to be starting now, although paradoxically, reducing the size of the sidewalls and thus their surface may equally decrease the size of the sponsor and therefore its visibility on its own product.