F1 | Pirelli, Isola: “The new tires will not be included until mid-season”

According to the racing manager Pirelli, the new tires for the 2018 season will not be fully understood until at least mid-season.

The introduction of the new pink hypersoft as the softest rubber brought the range of slick tyres Pirelli to seven, but new specifications of the ultrasoft, supersoft, soft and hard compounds have also been introduced.

Interviewed by Motorsport.com what impact these changes would have on the teams' understanding of the new tires in the first races, Mario isola said:

“I'm sure there are some details we don't know. The compounds are more or less all new, except for the medium, the soft one that comes from last year. We tested last year, we did a test in Abu Dhabi, we will have a test in Barcelona but you can't say you know every detail of any compound after just two tests. Hypersoft is a compound that we need to understand where we can use it, and everything else too. I think we'll really start to get to know the compounds, halfway through the season, not before.".

During the pre-season, many teams complained that in cold conditions, many compounds deteriorated easily.

The team principal of Clean, Frederic Vasseur, stated that the situation regarding tires is blind at the moment:

“It's a complicated situation, but it's difficult for everyone. We have a lot of compounds, if we had eight days of testing it might make sense, with four days where you have to do race simulations and so on, it's difficult to understand each compound. I don't think it can compromise the race, but it's difficult to manage".

The boss of Haas, Gunther steiner, further added that even with a perfect performance of the pre-season tests “I wouldn't be brave enough to say we would have a perfect understanding of tires”.

Jessica Cortellazzi