Pirelli: Hembery, “Large amount of non-F1 rubber already deposited on the circuit”

The new Pirelli tires faced the extreme conditions of the Malaysian circuit, taking to the track for today's two free practice sessions: track temperatures reached a peak of 49 degrees centigrade; furthermore, the asphalt of this circuit is one of the most abrasive on the calendar.

Tire wear and thermal degradation are in line with expectations and the top seven drivers in FP2 are within four tenths of a second; which outlines very interesting scenarios for Sunday's race.

The P Zero Orange hard tyre, completely revised compared to last year's counterpart, made its track debut today.

The performance gap between the hard and medium compounds so far is between 1 and 1,2 seconds, paving the way for different strategies.

Only the hard tire was used in this morning's FP1, while the soft-hard combination was chosen for the FP2 race simulations in the afternoon.

Under this year's new regulations, each driver has an extra set of the harder tire available for the first 30 minutes of FP1; this meant that, this morning, there was a lot of action on the track from the start of the session.

Pirelli Motorsport Director, Paul Hembery, said: “As in Australia, here too we saw few marbles. What surprised us, however, was the large amount of non-F1 rubber already deposited on the circuit.

The surface cleaned up considerably during FP2, and this allowed us to have a more representative reading of the track conditions. We saw a performance gap between the two compounds of between 1 and 1,2 seconds: this should be maintained if temperatures remain high. If temperatures were to drop, the gap would also narrow.

But we are still in the early stages of the car development cycle, so it will be important for everyone to analyze today's data very carefully in order to formulate a strategy. In Malaysia it can rain at any time, and this is another factor to consider for the race."

Pirelli fact of the day:

The P Zero tires that power Formula One single-seaters have many close relatives in the world of road cars: as many as 380. This is the record number of approvals obtained by the P Zero, Pirelli's flagship product.