Pirelli brings out its hard tires for the Indian GP

Pirelli unveiled today the tire choices it will offer to drivers and teams for the last three races of the season. For the Abu Dhabi and Brazilian Grand Prix, the Italian manufacturer will provide soft and medium tires, a familiar tire combination for the drivers since they used them in Valencia, at the Nürburgring, at Spa-Francorchamps, and at Monza, and they will use them this weekend at Suzuka. For the record, the Italian manufacturer will be on familiar ground in Abu Dhabi since it was on the Yas Marina Circuit, a little less than a year ago, that the drivers first discovered the Italian tires.

But before heading to the Middle East and Latin America, the teams will face a new challenge on the Buddh Circuit – freshly built – which will host the first edition of the Indian Grand Prix. On this occasion, and as the manufacturer expects an extremely abrasive track, Pirelli has decided to give a final run to its hardest tires, which had not been used since the British Grand Prix and were not supposed to make an appearance in a race again.

However, in order not to penalize the drivers, Pirelli has exceptionally decided to reverse the tire allocation for the entire Indian weekend. Thus, while traditionally the drivers each have 6 sets of so-called Prime tires for the harder compounds and 5 sets of Option tires for the softer ones, Pirelli will provide everyone with 6 sets of soft tires and 5 sets of hard tires. This will not change the situation for qualifying and the race, where the drivers have as many hard tires as soft ones, but it will prevent the teams from having to save the softer tires as they have been able to do today, for example, during the free practice sessions at the Japanese Grand Prix.

Paul Hembery, Pirelli Motorsport Director: India is a great unknown for all the teams and ourselves, so we will bring the most durable hard compounds to cover all possibilities. Abu Dhabi is a much more familiar territory for us, and the combination of medium and soft compounds suits the track well. This combination has offered close races in the past, and we hope to finish the season on a high note at Interlagos, with many overtakes and interesting pit stop tire strategy opportunities.

Thus, throughout the season, Pirelli largely favored the soft yellow-walled tires that drivers were able to use at every Grand Prix. The Milanese manufacturer paired them with the medium white-walled and hard silver-walled tires seven times each, while the super-soft red-walled tires were only offered five times throughout the past season.