![\"Pirelli-T-Abd-f1-16\"](\"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/gallery\/f1-2010\/Pirelli-Test-AbuDhabi\/Pirelli-T-Abd-f1\/Pirelli-T-Abd-f1-16.jpg\")
The latest shock is the performance of the new ‘supersoft’ tyre, which – to the circus’ collective surprise – will be supplied to teams in Melbourne next month.<\/p>\nThe alarm in the paddock about Pirelli’s 2013 tyres is growing louder with every day.<\/p>\n
The latest shock is the performance of the new ‘supersoft’ tyre, which – to the circus’ collective surprise – will be supplied to teams in Melbourne next month.<\/p>\n
Williams’ Pastor Maldonado tried the compound in Barcelona on Thursday, and – according to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport – it proved not only unpredictable and heavily-degrading, but also slower than the harder ‘soft’ variant.<\/p>\n
But in truth, now is not the time for the sport to panic about the prospect of ten-stop pit strategies in 2013.<\/p>\n
Sergio Perez had put voice to the alarm this week by flagging the “extreme” degradation of the new Pirellis, but he now notes: “We were also very worried about the tyres last year.<\/p>\n
“Then in Melbourne in warmer weather everything was much more normal,” said the Mexican.<\/p>\n
Indeed, F1 drivers tested the 2013 tyres during practice in Brazil late last year, and there was no subsequent panicking.<\/p>\n
“So,” said Mark Webber, “we are optimistic that in Melbourne, on a much warmer track, the cars will slide less and we will not have the dramatic graining that we’ve seen here.”<\/p>\n
Lotus’ Romain Grosjean did a four-stop race simulation in Barcelona on Thursday, while Australian Webber had to stop for tyres five times when he conducted a race simulation.<\/p>\n
But Paul Hembery, Pirelli’s motor racing director, thinks that while Melbourne will be much warmer, the teams will also be smarter once the 2013 season actually begins.<\/p>\n
“We believe we will see two to three stops in Melbourne,” he is quoted by Brazil’s O Estado de S.Paulo.<\/p>\n
Pirelli’s racing manager Mario Isola, speaking to Spanish newspaper El Pais in Barcelona, agrees: “Perez is more scared than he should be.<\/p>\n
“All we’ve done is try to slightly increase the spectacle of the racing, but we haven’t done anything dramatic.”<\/p>\n
Perez’s teammate, the veteran and former world champion Jenson Button, added in Barcelona: “The tyre problems we are all having here are completely normal for these conditions.<\/p>\n
“Barcelona has a rough surface, there are high speed corners, and it’s cold.\u00a0 What do you expect?<\/p>\n
“Pirelli can’t make tyres tailored for winter testing,” he insisted.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The alarm in the paddock about Pirelli’s 2013 tyres is growing louder with every day. The latest shock is the performance of the new ‘supersoft’ tyre, which – to the circus’ collective surprise – will be supplied to teams in Melbourne next month. Williams’ Pastor Maldonado tried the compound in Barcelona on Thursday, and – …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[2120,3],"tags":[5262,5340,1797,1404],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17856"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17857,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17856\/revisions\/17857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}