Pirelli will only tweak the hard tyres despite Red Bull pressure
Pirelli has elected to make just one minor change to its hard compound tyre for the remainder of the season, following a meeting in Milan earlier this week to decide if it needed to revamp its products
Red Bull had championed a push to try and make Pirelli move away from the more aggressive compounds that it introduced at the start of this season.
However, a majority of outfits were happy with what Pirelli had produced this season and were eager for the Italian company not to make any major changes.
Pirelli chiefs met at their headquarters earlier this week to analyse the situation, and in the end the only change will be to the hard compound, to improve its temperature working range for the likely cooler conditions that teams will be greeted with during the European phase of the season.
Paul Hembery, Pirelli's motorsport director, said: "After evaluating tyre performance over the balance of the first four races, we took the decision - in consultation with all of the teams - to change the hard compound from Spain onwards, as we did in Barcelona two years ago when we also introduced a new hard tyre for the rest of the season.
"This latest version of the hard compound is much closer to the 2012 tyre, with the aim of giving the teams more opportunity to run a wider range of strategies in combination with the other compounds, which remain unchanged."
F1 teams will get the first chance to try out the new harder compound tyre at the forthcoming Spanish Grand Prix, where it will be used with the medium compound tyre.
Pirelli has also confirmed that in Monaco the soft and super-soft tyres will be used, while in Canada teams will have the super-soft and the medium.
Although Red Bull has won two of the first four races, and is leading both championships, team principal Christian Horner said after the Bahrain GP that he was still unhappy with the rubber choices.
"I think the tyres are still too on an edge," he said. "Needing to four-stop in a race is I think a bit too extreme. There are other teams that look like they have bigger issues than Red Bull with their tyres, but you need to speak to them to ask their opinion.
"But I do feel the tyres are on an edge and just need to come back a little bit."
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