Vitantonio Liuzzi, the Force India driver talked to the media earlier this week explaining his first experience with the new Pirelli tyres. He believes that the entry of the Italian tyre manufacturer is great for Formula One and
he is looking forward to a very exciting 2011 season ahead with the new rubber.
Formula One has switched to the Italian manufacturers, running its first race at the curtain raiser of 2011, the Bahrain Grand Prix, scheduled to be held next March. Previously, the Japanese company, Bridgestone was the sole tyre
provider for all the teams for 14 years.
What Liuzzi saw during his first attempt of driving with the Pirelli tyres has made him very confident for the upcoming season. He is moving ahead for next year’s race with a very positive first impression hoping to embrace a very
exciting season ahead.
While talking to the reporters soon after the first drive with the tyres he said, “I was expecting a much bigger difference between the two tyre manufacturers [Bridgestone and Pirelli], but in fact we only had to modify the set-up
a little bit and after a few changes we found a decent balance straight away.”
All the Formula One drivers and teams had their first test of the tyres soon after the last round of the season, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last month, at the Yas Marina Circuit. On Friday and Saturday, following the race weekend,
the two days’ test session took place. The teams as well as the drivers have expressed a lot of satisfaction with the new tyres while Pirelli also believes that they have fared decently in their first test.
The tyre wear of Pirelli is surely different from that of Bridgestone in many ways. The difference was more evidently noticed because the track surface of Abu Dhabi has already been rubbered with a very different brand of tyres.
As per many of the analysts, this can initially make things complicated for the drivers.
According to some early observations of Liuzzi, the rear tyres of Pirelli are more wearable than that of Bridgestone which caused more sliding in some of the cars. While describing his second day’s test session, Liuzzi said, “During
the longest runs it felt like we were losing a fair bit of grip at the rear, but we are confident that Pirelli will address that issue and change that for the start of next season. They are pretty fast tyres overall and pretty good in terms of graining.”
Another thing worth noticing during the two days’ session was that these new tyres degraded much quicker than Bridgestone did. Liuzzi as well as many other people in the sport believe that this is something that Formula One management
and FIA have asked the manufacturers for on purpose. This can bring a lot more excitement in the sport as the sooner the tyres will degrade, more pit stops will be needed for the drivers, dramatically changing their positions.
With refueling banned, drivers normally pit only once all through the race to change their tyres. Although, drivers took the wearing of rubber as a big drawback on part of the manufacturers only a little while back, now this is
becoming part of the race strategy.
The Force India driver believes that the drivers as well as the viewers will not think negatively of Pirelli, if their tyres degrade during the race. He concluded saying that only after the first few races will people become used
to it and will take it as an exciting thing on the track.
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