Pirelli simplifies its tire range for 2019
With the aim of making the understanding of tires clearer, Pirelli is eliminating its "rainbow" system to return to a visual presentation reduced to three variants.
Even though the number of tire types will remain unchanged for the next season, their naming will change. Instead of having seven different tire categories, each with a color and name assigned, only three colors and names will be represented during race weekends.
Thus each circuit retains different tire compounds, but their designation becomes the same:
– La gamme la plus dure du Week-end sera partout le pneu “dur” représenté par la couleur blanche.
– La gamme médium du Week-end sera le pneu “médium” représenté par la couleur jaune.
– La gamme la plus tendre du Week-end sera la pneu “tendre” représenté par la couleur rouge.
Here is what Pirelli’s sporting director, Mario Isola, declares: «The idea is to give a number to each compound. But it’s still under discussion because I just had a discussion with the engineers and they prefer a letter instead of a number. But yes, we will always have a clear and precise distinction between each compound. If we homologate five compounds for 2019, there will be the 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and we will tell you in advance that the hard is actually the 2, the medium the 3, and the soft the 4. »
If it’s true that the viewer will be less confused regarding the understanding of the tires, is that the real problem with tires that have completely sanitized the races, with a strategy almost always reduced to a single stop because the compounds offered are far too hard to cause genuine wear?
