Pirelli announce unchanged tyre allocations for next three races

2012 F1 season

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Pirelli will allocate the same tyre compounds for the Canadian, European and British races that were supplied last year.

Drivers will have the soft and super-soft tyres in Montreal, soft and medium in Valencia, and soft and hard in Silverstone.

Here are the tyre allocations announced so far this year and how they compare to last year:

Circuit2012 Option2012 Prime2011 Option2011 Prime
MelbourneSoftMediumSoftHard
SepangMediumHardSoftHard
ShanghaiSoftMediumSoftHard
BahrainSoftMediumNo raceNo race
CatalunyaSoftHardSoftHard
Monte-CarloSuper-softSoftSuper-softSoft
MontrealSuper-softSoftSuper-softSoft
ValenciaSoftMediumSoftMedium
SilverstoneSoftHardSoftHard

Pirelli’s soft, medium and hard tyres are softer compounds than those used last year.

2012 F1 season


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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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29 comments on “Pirelli announce unchanged tyre allocations for next three races”

  1. Pretty much as expected, although I would have fancied them to take a few more gambles maybe, because the teams will certainly start to get a grip on the tyres in the next few races.

    1. Get a grip…I see what you did there!

  2. I hoped they would try something different with Valencia atleast..

    1. Agreed, Valencia could have used a more exciting choice.

    2. Change the track for starters :P

      1. Yeah, to a new circuit lol.

        1. My best plan to improve Valencia includes dynamite, bull-dozers, and exactly zero Herman Tilke.

          1. gimme some weed and some strong brew and I will go on a rampage for ya! God, I hate that circuit!!!!!!!

  3. It’s nice to see how the photos of Michael Schumacher are persistently connected with the threads for the Pirelli’s tyres in Formula One.

    I strongly believe one day most people will understand that Formula One is not all about conserving tyres and then the merits of his straightforwardness will be estimated with due attention and in the proper manner.

    1. @hadzhiev There’s no image in this article.

      Are you talking about the caption picture on the home page? If so you should know it was chosen because I was looking for a picture of a driver in Canada last year on super-soft tyres.

      1. But that doesn’t explain why World Trade Center 7 collapsed as well, if you catch my drift.

        1. I think its safe to say “Drift=uncaught”

    2. @hadzhiev… +1

    3. @hadzhiev, much agreed.
      I too fear F1 conversion to being a “Race of the Conservative” Much like Nascar and Indy. These races are very much processional until the last few laps, during which there is a mad dash, and rarely any reason for each front running driver to win except luck.

      In Nascar, drivers do not generally fight for positions early on. As long as they are in the top 10 and not to far back with 10 laps to go, they have nearly an identical chance of winning.

      Lets hope F1 can be better than that.

      1. @jalinsharp, me too, another analogy is bicycle racing where all the action for the day happens in the last 20 seconds.

        1. @javlinsharp“, it’s wierd, typos are invisible until you hit “send”.

          1. @hohum Or ‘Publish’!

    4. @hadzhiev I don’t think Formula 1 is all about tyre conservation. I don’t really get why only 5 races in to this season people think that it will be like this forever. That’s not the case and it won’t be.

      Formula 1, for me, is about working against the odds. Sure, Pirelli could make another set of Bridgestones, but where would be the challenge in that?

      Make them work for it, make them complain if they want. I’m watching the top level of motorsport here.

      1. Keep watchin’, then.
        I do not mind.

        And believe me, if you have 5 different winners in only 5 races (this was almost one-third of the season few years ago), something is not right.

        1. @hadzhiev What was wrong in 1983, then?

          1. @keithcollantine The fastest drivers were not dependent on 1-2 °C margin in the track temperature to be “the fastest” and also the best drivers weren’t dependent on artificial gimmicks, then.

            One should also consider the very important fact that there were lots of racing incidents early in the 1984 Formula One Season thus much that it mixed the picture to a great extent.

          2. @hadzhiev That doesn’t answer the question.

            You said there must be something wrong if five different drivers can win the first five races. That happened in 1983. So, in your view, what was wrong in 1983?

          3. @keithcollantine
            I’ve answered your question, Keith.

          4. @hadzhiev You said: “The fastest drivers were not dependent on 1-2 °C margin in the track temperature to be “the fastest” and also the best drivers weren’t dependent on artificial gimmicks, then.” Is that what you’re saying was “wrong” in 1983? If so, why?

          5. No, my post as a whole is the exact answer to the question, in particular, the second part of it.

            “One should also consider the very important fact that there were lots of racing incidents early in the 1984 Formula One Season thus much that it mixed the picture to a great extent.”

            And I did not say it was “wrong”. The incidents were the reason of the mixed up picture then. That’s all.

  4. So in reality, at Monaco we will have the ” super-super-soft” and the ” super-soft” even though by use of semantics it will be the same as last year.

    1. Would be nice if Pirelli gave up the name game and simply gave the tyres a 1 to 10 hardness grade, so we don’t have the ridiculous situation of the “Softs” being the hard option, must be totally incomprehensible for new or casual viewers.

      1. @hohum Give them some credit. It doesn’t ask too much of people to understand that some tracks require softer tyres than others.

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