Pirelli's masterplan for F1 entertainment
Pirelli has set out to create tyres that will make F1 more exciting - and the success or failure of its mission could dominate 2011. Jonathan Noble gets the inside story from Pirelli's Paul Hembery
Whether it is a Ferrari, Red Bull Racing, McLaren or A.N.Other that comes out on top of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix is anyone's guess right now, but one thing is at least guaranteed from Melbourne: the main talking point on Sunday night is going to be tyres.
After a winter of intense development from the teams to recover the downforce lost by the ban on double diffusers, and come up with clever ways to get exhausts blowing through the floors, the real big issue for everyone in the pitlane has been getting to grips with the new Pirelli rubber.
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Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.
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