Pirelli confirms 12-hour test for ultra-soft tyre debut

2015 F1 season

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Pirelli has confirmed F1 teams will be invited to participate in an extended test to run its new ultra-soft tyre for the first time.

The session will take place at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi on December 1st, two days after the final race of the season. “Teams have been asked to run preferably race or reserve drivers, and they will not be allowed to try new parts nor alter the cars during the test,” according to Pirelli.

The test will be open to all teams, who may enter one car each, but participation is not mandatory.

As well as testing the new ultra-soft tyre, which is set for introduction next year, Pirelli will use the session to develop a new construction for next year’s tyres.

The ultra-soft tyres will have purple colouring, which was chosen after an online poll of F1 fans.

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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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24 comments on “Pirelli confirms 12-hour test for ultra-soft tyre debut”

  1. Pirelli’s Ultra-Soft – sounds like an Italian loo roll.
    A while ago I read an email in Autosport from a reader who had a fantastic idea. Instead of referring to tyres as ‘primes’ and ‘options’ (which baffles most people) they should be referred to as ‘sprint’ and ‘endurance’ tyres. Anyone can relate to and understand that – sprint tyres are quick over short distances, endurance tyres are slower but last longer. No-brainer.

    1. Good suggestion, would help noobs like me. The habit won’t be easy to change though.

      1. Don’t worry I’ve been following F1 for 23 years and I honestly could not tell you what option or prime tyres are. What it mean?! Super-soft, soft, medium, hard makes sense of course.

        1. @unicron2002 Option tyre are the faster/softer of the two dry compound given in a race weekend. For eg if in a race weekend, teams are provided with medium and hard compounds, then medium compounds would be called options and the hard compound would be called primes.

          1. Thanks @illusive, I’ll try and remember that! As others have explored in this thread the names option and prime don’t really make much sense, and they’re certainly not obvious. I wonder who came up with that naming system, the FIA or Pirelli? If Pirelli did it’s a bit of a facepalm.

        2. Primes are the harder tyre of the two compounds brought to a race, and Options are the softer of the two compounds. It’s a shorthand way of referring to the two compounds – at any given race there’ll be two compounds, one of which will be softer (faster) than the other, but they will be different compounds from track to track. I guess it would be easier if they just referred to them as hards and softs, since ultimately the actual compound doesn’t matter – only each tyre compared to the other compound option available.

          Except that one time when for no apparent reason, the Primes were the softer tyres and the Options were the harder ones.

        3. Bjornar Simonsen
          4th November 2015, 14:51

          Prime is short for primary, which means the harder of the two compounds. Option is optional, makes no sense that way because they have to run both compunds, but that’s what it means. Option is the softer of the compounds. Pirelli then brings two compounds to the race and choose from supersoft, soft, medium and hard, but when commentators say “now he’s put the soft tire on” many people would think that he’s got the softer of the two compounds, but it may well mean he’s got the harder of the two on. Hence option and prime to avoid confusion.

        4. I believe the difference is that each driver receives four sets of the prime tyre and three sets of the option tyre, for the duration of qualifying and the race. Traditionally the softer of the two concepts is designated as the option, though this isn’t always the case, for example cota 2012.

    2. Bjornar Simonsen
      4th November 2015, 14:44

      For me, it’s the opposite. If they’d only stuck to “options” or “primes” I would know which tire they’re on. But no, they say now he’s on the soft compound, then I have to check which tires Pirelli has brought, soft and mediums, or soft and supersoft? Is “soft” the soft tyre or the hard? You have to check. With “option” you instantly know which. Commentators trying to cater to noobs only confuse. But I agree, “sprint” and “endurance” or something like that would be even better.

  2. Wow! Motorsport won’t be the same.
    What did she do besides being married to Mercedes boss and Williams shareholder?
    Two marketing runs?

    1. Yep seems pertinent.

    2. err, you might have wanted to put that in the article about Suzie!!!! or did i miss the wedding between Toto and the pirelli boss?

  3. 12 hours of testing for ultra soft tyres.

    Hope they pack plenty of them…

    1. Hopefully it can complete 3 laps atleast. 1 in and outlap each and 1 flying lap.

  4. 12 hours test for tyres that will last 12 minutes at most?

  5. Wasn’t there some talk about having a choice of tyres next year or have I missed something there – I have to be honest a lot of the tyre talk has passed my by . . . drowned out by the incessant whining from Rot Bull.

    1. There was talk of allowing the teams to select the two compounds they use (within reason) instead of having Pirelli choose; no idea if it’ll happen or not though.

  6. I presume this is to stop boring 1 stop races that use supersoft-soft combos?

  7. The new tyre type is good idea, but i don’t think the Pirelli will make usable tyre.

  8. I stopped watching F1 for a number of years but got back into it recently.

    On the subject of tyres, I notice now those pitting first usually always get an advantage as they are on new tyres earlier (undercut) than the driver they were battling with.

    Back in the Schumacher days it used to be the driver who stayed out longer got the advantage.

    Is this down to the tyres nowadays being pretty useless after a couple of flying laps, or the fact everyone has the same fuel on board now so there is no advantage staying out and running on fumes whilst the early pitter is now heavy?

    1. I think that’s why the tyres changed. So teams who pitted had an advantage with new tyres and weren’t held up by slower cars on used tyres. In 2012 I think pirelli got the tyres just right but since then it hasn’t worked well. Teams now have to pit at the same time new tyres are just so much faster than used tyres. No point staying out if the cars you are racing are lapping 2 seconds faster

    2. Back then they also had the undercut on the tyres, but they would also refuel the car and that makes it slower.

      The tyres would generally outlive the fuel load, so indeed if they were able to run a few laps longer on an emptying fuel tank they would be (a lot) faster and would be able to overtake the driver who pitted first.

      No refuelling means only the undercut on the tyres is left and the compounds often vary a lot, with up to 2 second time gap between compounds. So the undercut can be huge indeed.

  9. A fan vote for the purple colour is good to see. Arguably not the most important issue in F1, but it’s a start.
    Or did they ask the fans because the teams couldn’t agree on a colour?

  10. Yay – even more marbles- then we can watch some more choo choo f1 :(

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