Silverstone test, the riders try the new Pirelli P Zeros

The teams will take to the track at Silverstone, from Wednesday to Friday, for the official tests of young drivers. It will be an opportunity to develop the cars, to let young drivers race, but also to test the new tyres Pirelli P Zero, which combine the 2012 construction and the 2013 compounds, and which will be used starting from Hungarian Grand Prix.

In agreement with FIA, the annual supply of sets supplied for testing has been increased from 100 to 105. It is up to the teams to decide how many of the tires remaining at their disposal they intend to use during each test and which compounds to test.

No team, for example, has chosen the supersoft for Silverstone, as its characteristics do not match those of the English circuit: one of the fastest on the calendar.

In addition to the allocation of 105 sets intended for testing (from which those used to date by each Scuderia must be deducted), Pirelli makes 7 additional sets of tires available for Silverstone: 3 hard, 2 medium and 2 hard prototypes. The latter compound was already used during free practice in Spanish Grand Prix and British Grand Prix of this year.

The starting drivers, who can take part in the tests only on the condition that they carry out tire development activities based on the run plans provided by Pirelli, can use these additional sets.

I P Zero that will be used at Silverstone this week are all the same specification that will be seen from the Hungarian Grand Prix onwards, with an aramid belt construction, as in 2012, combined with the current compounds.

Despite being new overall, these tires are not completely unknown to the teams who have had the opportunity to collect a lot of data both on last year's constructions and on this year's compounds.

The work will mainly focus on fine-tuning the car-tyre package to get the most out of the new specification.

Il Pirelli Motorsport Director, Paul HemberySaid: “This test represents a precious opportunity for the teams to evaluate the new tires and to get their young drivers out on track. Given the limited testing opportunities throughout the year, it is important for every team, as well as for us, to get the most out of these tests. The experience of the factory riders will help and we look forward to hearing their feedback. We don't expect the new tire specification to have any differences in terms of ride compared to the previous one: the general characteristics are similar. However, there will be a lot of useful work for the teams to do over these three days.".