Pirelli reveals changed colour range for 2019 F1 tyres

Although there will be a range of between five and six compounds for the entire season, Pirelli will bring just three types to each race weekend.

The trio brought to each grand prix will be different but there will be three nominated colours: the white will be the hard, the yellow will be the medium and the red will be the soft.

Pirelli's racing director Mario Isola said: "We wanted to eliminate the rainbow as we had too many colours - so we wanted to have just three."

Isola confirmed that the teams and media will know in advance which compound is used for the hard, medium and soft at each event.

However the old range of names - such as supersoft and hypersoft - will be replaced by a code.

It has yet to be decided whether that will use numbers or letters.

"The idea is to give a number to each compound," he explained.

"We are currently discussing that, because I've had a chat now with the engineers - they prefer a letter for the system.

"But basically we will have a clear identification of each compound.

"So if we are going to homologate five compounds, there will be one, two, three, four, five, and we give you the information in advance, so you know that for this race the hard is number two, the medium is three, the soft is four.

"So, you can compare at different circuits. But for spectators there will be three colours."

Isola says there is no need to actually mark the tyres with the code: "We will give the information to everybody in advance, because teams have to make their choice, their selection, but they are not on the sidewalls.

"But you know for this event which is the hard, which is the medium, which is the soft. It is not really necessary to have a number or identification [on the tyre]."