FORMULA 1 ARAMCO PRE-SEASON TESTING 2022 – OVERALL TESTING RESULTS

Sat, 12 Mar 2022 19:51:00 +0100

Pirelli’s 18-inch tyres were back in action on the 2022 Formula 1 cars at the Bahrain International Circuit this week, for the second pre-season test following the first session at Barcelona two weeks ago.
Temperatures were much higher throughout the three days in Sakhir compared to Spain, with ambient temperatures ranging from 22 to 39 degrees centigrade while track temperatures varied from 26 to 48 degrees. The second day (Friday) was the hottest. Fastest of all in the test was Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who set a time of 1m31.720s on the softest C5 compound a few minutes from the end of the final session on Saturday.

MARIO ISOLA, PIRELLI MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR

“The Bahrain test allowed us to gather additional useful data on the behaviour of our new 18-inch tyres on a circuit that’s very different to Spain in terms of layout, temperature, and asphalt characteristics. This was a test that you could split into two parts really: the first two days were very hot as well as windy, which meant that they weren’t so representative as the high temperatures accentuated degradation and distorted the true picture of tyre behaviour. The third and final day was definitely the most important one, thanks to milder temperatures, improved set-ups, and degradation levels that were much more in line with our expectations. This allowed the teams to focus more on the tyres, trying out all the compounds available to them. It’s still quite hard to work out the performance gaps between the tyres, but they seem to be slightly higher than we initially thought, with a similar time difference between each compound.”

2022 BARCELONA PRE-SEASON TEST 1 – OVERALL TESTING RESULTS

Fri, 25 Feb 2022 20:35:00 +0100

The 2022 Formula 1 season has got underway in Barcelona with Pirelli’s new 18-inch tyres. An initial three days of pre-season testing took place in ambient temperatures that ranged from six to 21 degrees centigrade, while track temperature varied between seven and 31 degrees. The drivers ran on a dry track for the first two days as well as the morning of the third day, while on Friday afternoon the surface was artificially dampened in order to test the wet-weather tyres. The fastest overall time of the test was set by Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, who did a 1m19.138s in the last few laps on Friday.

MARIO ISOLA, PIRELLI MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR

“We can be pleased with how the three days of testing went, which of course represented the debut of our 18-inch tyres on these new single-seaters, with all the tyre testing up to now having been carried out using only mule cars. The teams and drivers all focussed on gaining confidence with the new models and finding the best possible set up, so it’s too early to talk about the performance gap between the compound or degradation levels. This explains why the C2 and C3 compounds in the middle of the range, which are most often used here in Montmelo, were run more often than the others during the test. Setting the fastest flying lap obviously wasn’t the main objective, but we still saw some interesting lap times; around a second off the quickest race lap from last year’s Spanish Grand Prix. This makes it probable that these cars will end up even faster than their predecessors by the end of the season.”

Newsroom Pirelli

FORMULA 1 ARAMCO PRE-SEASON TESTING 2022 – OVERALL TESTING RESULTS

MARIO ISOLA, PIRELLI MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR

2022 BARCELONA PRE-SEASON TEST 1 – OVERALL TESTING RESULTS

MARIO ISOLA, PIRELLI MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR