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Pirelli motor sports director, Paul Hembery, has said that the final test in Barcelona will clear any lingering doubts the teams have about the PZero tyres.
The Barcelona test is the first complete Grand Prix race simulation to take place with the new tyres. He further added that only two compounds, hard and soft, will be used in the Barcelona test which will be used in the first three Grand Prix’s of Australia, Malaysia and China.
Paul said that until now, the three tests were done on damp and wet conditions which were not the best for Pirelli PZero tyres. He further hoped that the test temperatures will be a little higher in the last test.
This would help the teams safely conclude and test their race strategies for the coming season. With weather forecasts pointing towards dry but slightly dry Hembrey still thinks that the test will be somewhat useful for the teams.
He said that the last test in Barcelona was conducted in six degree temperature which is not enough for the tyres to stick with the track and create some grip.
Pirelli have recently been criticised by several Formula 1 teams and officials for their tyre development. The lone supporter of the new Pirelli tyres has been Martin Whitmarsh, who said that the tyres will be better than last year’s Bridgestone tyres.
In the Barcelona test, Pirelli hopes that the teams will not care about the race times but will go for pit-stop simulations and check the tyres. Paul said, “We're expecting them [teams] to focus on long runs and race simulations, which should confirm the results we have previously extrapolated from our testing data: two or sometimes three pit-stops at every race.”
Formula 1 boss, Bernie Ecclestone, commented the other day that the Pirelli tyres do look dull but they will be the same for every team. Fernando Alonso of Ferrari retorted on Bernie’s ‘same’ philosophy that the bigger teams would suffer more than the smaller teams.
He said, “I'm not keen on that because I think this increased uncertainty does not favor the strongest teams. It's as if in football, it was decided to have a penalty per team each half hour in which case Barcelona and Real Madrid would not be jumping for joy.”
The Barcelona test will start on the eighth of March and eight teams will start the session. Mercedes, HRT, Ferrari and Williams will start the test a day after. The season will start from the 27th of the March in Australia where the high temperatures will raise an issue for the teams and especially for Pirelli and their tyre development.
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