Pirelli hopes to test with Pedro de la Rosa for the last time this year
The new lone tyre suppliers of the 2011 Formula 1 season Pirelli have recently stated that they are going to run one last test on their new tyre compounds with their official test driver Pedro de la Rosa even though Pedro has signed a deal with McLaren as
their new test driver.
Pirelli is going to continue its development process by holding private tests this year using the 2009 Toyota Formula 1 car which the team used to develop its compounds throughout the whole development process with Nick Heidfeld and Romain Grosjean before
Pedro joined them.
Even though de la Rosa has returned to McLaren as their test driver, Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery believes that the Spanish is going to help the lone tyre developers for one last time.
“Our first tests are in April. Ideally I'd like Pedro to do those tests before he leaves us because I'd like some continuity. We've made some modifications to the Toyota this year to increase the downforce and I'd like him to compare it for us,” Hembery
told reporters at the final test.
He added that this would of course create some problems between the teams if the season began or if there were some sort of obligations the drivers needed to attend to but Pirelli is hoping for a sort of a “handover”.
Pirelli stated before that they do not want to side with one team by using its test driver but Hembery has stated that it is not going to be easy for Pirelli to find the right calibre of driver.
“There are actually very few options because most of them are signed by teams not to drive. It's a bizarre situation, the teams have a lot of drivers but none of them can drive. Like Pedro, he's not going to drive anything - well, a simulator I guess,” he
said.
Nevertheless, he admitted that Pirelli is not going to get an ideal situation anytime soon because there is no system in place for young drivers to drive Formula 1 cars. As a result, they are hoping for a green signal from McLaren and Pedro de la Rosa regarding
this matter and it would be interesting to see the developments they make to the new tyres after this “final test”.
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