Pirelli seeks to confound teams with new 2012 approach

Pirelli will move to reinject excitement into formula one for 2012.

Earlier this season, the high spectacle of the grands prix was attributed to the new supplier’s highly-degrading tyres, with Pirelli adopting a deliberately different approach than its predecessor Bridgestone.

Auto Motor und Sport reports that Pirelli aims to confound the engineers and strategists yet again in 2012 by supplying even softer tyres.

“We can see now that the number of pitstops has been coming down,” said motor sport director Paul Hembery.

“The drivers are dealing better with the tyres, the engineers are finding better setups, the learning about the tyres is going on.

“We must try to give these guys some tough nuts to crack yet again,” he announced.

Hembery said the new ‘hard’ tyre for 2012, for instance, is almost as soft as the current ‘medium’.

And in Friday practice in Abu Dhabi, the teams tried a new 2012-spec soft tyre.

“Something like that could be the medium tyre next year,” said Hembery, adding that Pirelli is therefore working on even softer compounds.

And he said that meeting those challenges would be easier if the teams help Pirelli come up with a new way to test the tyres.

“The old (2009) Toyota is already in the museum,” he revealed.  “We have asked the teams to find a solution as at the moment we don’t have one.

“These cars are constantly evolving and we need to keep pace with them somehow.”

© RIF | GMM