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| © AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo |
Pirelli has brought the new specification hard tyres for teams to test during the Friday practice session for the German Grand Prix after the experimental compound failed to make its scheduled debut at Silverstone earlier.
The Italian tyre manufacturer had set for the compound to be tested during Friday practice for the British Grand Prix but teams were unable to run it as it had rained during the outing.
Each driver will have two sets of the new tyre on top of their usual allocation of 11 sets in Germany, with the medium compound and soft nominated for the weekend.
“After a wet Silverstone, we hope to give the drivers the chance to run on the experimental hard compound tyre during free practice at Hockenheim,” said Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery. “But the weather in Germany at this time of year can be almost as unpredictable as it is in England: when we were at Hockenheim for the GP3 Series two years ago we saw plenty of rain, although it’s been very hot in the past too.
“We’re running them in Friday free practice only as with the championship so finely balanced, we feel that it would be unfair to suddenly alter one of the fundamental parameters that the teams have made a lot of effort to understand and get the most out of,” the Briton explained.
“But we enjoy a very productive dialogue with them, and we will always take into account the wishes of the majority,” he added. “It’s certainly going to be interesting hearing what they have to say about the new tyre, and seeing if their impressions match up to the conclusions that we have drawn from our private testing.”
Pirelli will be racing in Formula 1 at Hockenheim for the first time since it returned to the sport as last year’s German GP ran at the Nurburgring.
“Coming to a circuit that is new to us always holds a different challenge, as we don’t have any of our own previous data to compare it with,” Hembery pointed out. “But the progress that has been made with simulation is incredible: these days you can learn so much about how a tyre will behave on a circuit without even going there.”