Pirelli have announced they're closing the speed gap between tyres - so what will that mean for the racing in 2012?
Those familiar with Stephen Sondheim's musical Sweeney Todd will know it features an 'Adolfo Pirelli'. Apart from being a former barber to the King of Naples, Signor Pirelli produces a 'miracle elixir' that can cure virtually anything.
F1 fans know that the Pirelli tyre company's miracle elixir of four different compounds with varying degrees of hardness has been responsible for providing a tonic to The Formula One World Championship. Even though we had a runaway winner and podiums became the preserve of just five drivers in the latter half of 2011, it was a season to remember.
In its first season back since the 1990s, Pirelli say they supplied teams with a total of 34,000 tyres of which only 24,000 were used. The company reported that cars shod with Pirellis covered over 180,000 miles in testing and racing, without suffering a single manufacturing failure. Thus implying that Sebastian Vettel's very public tyre failure in Abu Dhabi was down to the Red Bull set-up.
The Italian manufacturer came into the sport with very little lead time after Bridgestone announced its surprise withdrawal in 2010, so to get it right in the first season is an impressive feat. For 2012, with 19 races under their belt, they have decided to change things round and see if they can do even better.
"We have had to make changes and the objective of those changes is to make the racing closer," said Pirelli's Motorsport Director Paul Hembery. "There will be a smaller gap in performance between the compounds. Last year the teams were making choices based on tyres that had a 1.5 seconds difference - we have tried to get that down below one second and the aim is to have it at around 0.8 seconds."
Hembery's objective has been to make it a lot trickier for the teams to work out which is the best strategy for their car. In 2011 almost every car that got through to Q3 selected the same tyre to start the race. In 2012, the teams' computers should be coming up with a lot more varied scenarios. "Last year we made it too easy for the teams by using soft compounds at each weekend," admits Hembery, "so they based their weekends around that. This year we want to mix it up more."
"We needed to do work on the crossover points and the durability - which is what we have done. We want a lower gap between compounds, with the slower tyre slightly degrading slightly less. Then teams will have to make a decision on which tyre to go with."
Last year a pole-sitting Sebastian Vettel wouldn't have risked qualifying with the harder of the two compounds because with a 1.5 second margin it might have put him back in 8th, 9th or 10th on the grid. This year with only 0.8 difference, he might be able to fit the slower tyre and put his car in 5th or 6th. Worth a gamble on rough aggressive tarmac...?
We should also see teams mixing up the compounds throughout the race, rather than viewing the slow tyre as the penalty tyre they're obliged to run at the end because the rules say they must strap on two different compounds.
But while the racing will be closer, qualifying could be far more predictable. Last year most of the mid-grid teams had to endure the prospect of Team Lotus fitting the quick tyres at the end of Q1, suddenly gaining a lot of time and forcing them to use a set of softer tyres to make sure they didn't exit in P.18. So the possibility of an embarrassing slip-up has receded.
With only 0.8 seconds between each compound of tyre, that threat of being undermined by a much slower car using a much faster tyre has diminished. So the F1 Schadenfreude of seeing McLaren, Ferrari but usually Mercedes suddenly having to make a run at the end of Q1 on the softer tyre may well be a thing of the past.
It also means that if drivers in the top cars make mistakes during qualifying and blow a set of the marginally faster compound - then trying to rescue their session on the alternative tyre isn't such a mountain to climb.
"We averaged 2.2 or 2.3 stops last year," says Hembery "and we are hoping for the same thing this year. Some races were two, some were three."
Pirelli's contract to supply F1 lasts just three years, but its involvement in the top tier of motorsport has already given a great commercial boost to the company and increased sales. No doubt boss Signor Marco Tronchetti is looking forward to further progress in 2012. The tyre company will certainly be doing a lot better than Adolfo Pirelli who met a nasty end at the hands of Sweeny Todd. But as the demon barber rightly pointed out in song, his miracle elixir was really just "piss and ink".
FH
