Pirelli on course with two-stop plan

There have been widespread calls for F1's new tyre supplier to ensure its rubber is less durable than the Bridgestone tyres of last season - which allowed drivers to run extremely long stints - so as to spice up the action.

The Italian firm's motorsport director Paul Hembery has said it is willing to reduce the durability of the compounds to achieve those aims, but thinks it too early to guarantee that the plan will come off at every event.

"We hope to have at least two tyre changes in every race," he said at Monday's wet weather night test in Abu Dhabi. "We want to try to create more of a show.

"We will try to play our part to create as much interest in the sport as possible. But we have to be realistic. This is our first year and some of the tracks we can't possibly test at - like the street circuits, or the new circuits."

Hembery added that Pirelli is looking into the possibility of testing new tyre types at grand prix weekends during the year, if all sides in F1 agree to it.

"We have asked the sport to consider testing new compounds during the season and they have suggested, verbally at least, that it could be possible in Friday first practices to try different compounds," he said.

Pirelli is running two nights of wet weather night testing at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi on Monday and Tuesday