Pirelli's race against time to save 'the show'

Will changes to Pirelli's tyres make a fundamental difference to next year's Formula 1 show, even before the big package of technical and sporting changes comes in 2021?

That's certainly the hope of the teams, the FIA and the F1 organisation after extensive discussions in recent weeks led to a focus on what is required from the tyres next season. Now it's up to Pirelli to get the job done - but it has relatively little time in which to complete the task.

Of late, tyres have played a huge role in determining form, especially in the rollercoaster midfield battle where those who master the black art of getting the Pirellis behaving right tend to lead the way on a given weekend.

At the sharp end of the field, Ferrari and Red Bull have made it clear that they were not happy with Pirelli's move to a thinner tread for 2018, both convinced that Mercedes has gained an advantage from it. A campaign to force a change to the old construction before the end of the season fizzled out after it failed to get sufficient support in a key meeting in Austria.

But the point has been made - the current tyres are too critical, too on edge, and have too much impact on overall form.

What the unhappy teams have been able to do is have some input into next year's tyres, as well as those for 2021, when the new 18-inch size comes in. That's manifested itself in a new FIA "target letter", essentially a set of instructions issued to Pirelli with a clear mandate of what is required from its products.

And what's wanted is a reduction in overheating, a wider working range, and low degradation.

It's a triple challenge that Pirelli has been required to take on - and with a limited opportunity to get it right, given that there's only one more 2020 test session before the tyre specs have to be frozen.

It's hard not to feel sorry for Pirelli. The company has been pulled in different directions over the years, and it's rarely been praised for getting it right.

"In terms of low or high degradation I don't think you can simply point it down to one of these characteristics," says Mercedes boss Toto Wolff. "I think we are giving Pirelli a hard time, because in one side we want to have a tyre that degrades, to have a pace differential for overtaking.

"On the other side the drivers feel that they can't push enough, and they need to manage the tyres. So lots of discussions going on, positive discussions. I'm sure that Pirelli is going to do a good job in coming up with a tyre that is hopefully going to tick all the boxes."

Those discussions were a major element of the recent 2021 meetings in Paris and Geneva, where for the first time the drivers had some input.

"They've got a new target letter to Pirelli to provide a different kind of tyre," Lewis Hamilton noted after he attended that first gathering on behalf of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association. "No driver agrees with the [current] target letter, and we don't know who wrote the target letter, but he had no input from the drivers, and has no idea what it's like to drive the car, and has not done a good job.

Hamilton's ability to set fastest lap on old hard tyres caught the eye, and gave his fellow drivers confidence that they've been asking for the right thing

"So we need to be a part of helping him create that target letter for next year, and that might help it a little bit."

After winning the British Grand Prix Hamilton gave another view on tyres, contrasting his early struggles while following Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas on the medium with his unexpected opportunity to steal fastest lap on his ageing hards right at the end.

"Me and Valtteri were having that fight, and if we didn't have thermal degradation, because the car is too heavy, and the tyres overheat, I could have just stayed on his tail and kept racing.

"But eventually I had to give up, because after God knows how many laps behind that battle the tyres dropped off a cliff, then you have to back off and go to a different strategy.

"I hope in the future they're able to make a tyre that goes on a little bit like the hard tyre that we pushed more today, and [we could] stay in that battle, and not suffer with that, and you'll see, hopefully, closer racing."

Hamilton's ability to set fastest lap on old hard tyres at Silverstone definitely did catch the eye, and gave his fellow drivers confidence that they've been asking for the right thing.

"Degradation is a big word that includes a lot of degradations," says GPDA director Romain Grosjean. "The one we absolutely hate is the surface overheating, that you cannot control when you follow another car.

"As soon as you slide the surface overheats and that's a huge degradation. The Pirelli tyres are why we always go for a one-stop race, because if you put the soft tyre on and you try to push and then pit and then push again, you're going to go fast for two laps and then slower, because they are far too temperature sensitive.

"So the degradation, if we were able to push for 10 laps and then you've got a clear amount of rubber and the tyres are going, then we wouldn't mind. But it just isn't the case.

"Sometimes you've got loads of rubber left, but because the thermal is so high and you can't recover the surface, you need to pit because it feels like the tyres are completely gone. So we want the tyres that we can lean on and push on."

The latest target letter was sent to the teams in draft form just before the Hungarian GP, and they have been invited to provide feedback in order to help to refine it.

"It's a new target letter," says Pirelli's F1 boss Mario Isola. "It's more complete than the first version, which was produced in 2016 for 2017-18-19. Obviously with the experience of the old one we are making some integration in the target letter to be more precise.

"Being more precise means that we have more clear targets, and then we will do our best to achieve all the targets. I cannot sign here that we will achieve all the targets, but at least we have a clear direction that is agreed with everybody.

"Otherwise we will continue to receive different requests from different people, and we never come to a common view.

"Sometimes people believe that it's just a matter of writing some numbers on a piece of paper, but it's not like that.

"You need to understand the numbers, you have to understand how to measure the targets, otherwise it's useless, and we are working hard on that. And we probably need to review the target letter in the future to adapt it to the conditions that we will experience with 18-inch tyres, and so on."

Pirelli has obviously spent the last few years factoring degradation into its products, because that's what was wanted. Does that mean it knows exactly how to take it out of the equation?

Isola makes it clear that Pirelli requires specifics.

"The idea is to go on a low degradation tyre, more resistant to overheating, so drivers can push the tyres and so on. Then we have to define exactly what we mean with that.

"If we say that we have three compounds at each race with zero degradation, it's useless because everybody's just using the quickest.

"This is not possible, but just to give you an example. So when we say low degradation tyres, we have to put numbers on that. It could be low degradation for me and not for you, so we need to understand which is the number of low degradation.

"Also talking about a wider working range, we have now quite a good definition that was agreed with the FIA and FOM, and soon also with the teams.

"Once we have defined the working range we can also fix a target to say, 'OK, we want a working range that is wider of this dimension,' because otherwise 'wider' is a bit meaningless.

"We are progressing, we need to speed up the progression, because we don't have a lot of time. So we need to be 100% sure of the expected target very soon."

The time factor is significant because the push for low degradation is a relatively recent development that Pirelli has had to add to the 2020 equation.

"It is different," says Isola. "Because we were talking about overheating reduction since a long time, and a wider working range since a long time, but reducing the level of degradation is something that is new. I'm not 100% sure that we have in our range of possible compounds what they are looking for."

Pirelli has obviously spent the last few years factoring degradation into its products, because that's what was wanted. Does that mean it knows exactly how to take it out of the equation?

"That's a question for our compounders," says Isola. "We like to make their life difficult! It is also true that in 2011 when we had the request to produce high degradation tyres it was a strange request.

"It was like 100 years we were working to reduce degradation, and suddenly we had this request to have high degradation tyres. Now we are going in the direction of low degradation. For the show, it's probably better."

The challenge Pirelli faces is that it had already completed most of its 2020 development before the push for low degradation gathered momentum. There's just one test left for development, to be conducted by Mercedes at Paul Ricard next month, before final validation by all teams in the post-Abu Dhabi GP test.

"It's a big challenge, so hopefully we are already going in the right direction with the development we have made so far, but we need to be 100% sure," Isola adds.

"One session is not a lot. Now the most urgent thing is to close the target letter, then to validate the development in September, and then we come to a conclusion.

"We already produced the prototypes for the test, so we need to understand which are the changes, and because we have tested different constructions and different compounds, we have to choose the solutions that are closer to the target letter. There are a lot of targets in the letter. You have other numbers that are more, let's say, defining the construction characteristics, it's not just the compounds."

Just to add to the challenge, at the same that it's finalising its 2020 products Pirelli is starting work on proper track testing of the 18-inch tyres for 2021 and the 18-inch tyres being introduced in Formula 2 next year.

"I believe we have to accept that sometimes we have terrible races, like we have terrible football matches. It's part of the sport. But we need to target to have 80% that are fantastic, 20% terrible, not the opposite" Mario Isola

"Some of the targets are very similar, some of the targets are more for 2021, to have something that is comparable when we move to the new size, to understand the level of performance, to understand there are some parameters that they want to consider in order to make the design of the car that is in line with the tyres that you are developing. Otherwise you are disconnected, and it's not good.

"What is important now is the first step is to freeze the targets for 2020, because we are running out of time. And then we have a bit more time for 2021.

"But considering that the plan is to freeze the [2021] regulations in October, we should also freeze the target letter in October."

Isola cautions that sometimes we read too much into the role of tyres in making a race exciting.

"I don't have a clear idea on why Silverstone and Spielberg were two exciting races," he says. "If we look at all the package, I believe that nobody has a clear idea that it was because of this, or because of that.

"In Spielberg we had a very nice race with the C2, C3, C4, in Paul Ricard we had the C2, C3, C4, and a boring race. It's a mix between compound selection, track layout, track surface. It's a bit of everything, it's difficult to say it's the tyre responsibility, circuit responsibility.

"I believe we have to accept that sometimes we have terrible races, like we have terrible football matches. It's part of the sport. But we need to target to have 80% that a fantastic, 20% terrible, not the opposite."

It's a big challenge, but Pirelli is willing to do whatever is required to improve the show.

"Our approach is always if the sport is successful, it's successful for everybody," Isola says.

"Especially for Pirelli that is investing money and resources in the sport, having a great success of the sport is a good investment.

"We need to analyse the requests and to reply to the requests, understanding if they are achievable or not, otherwise it's a waste of time."

It remains to be seen whether a move to low degradation will pay off. Is the current momentum just part of that usual cycle of 'grass is greener' rule changes that's had F1 saying 'we need refuelling, we don't need it, we need high downforce, we don't need it' over recent seasons.

"Maybe next year we'll have low degradation tyres and we'll have boring races," says Isola. "And everybody will ask for high degradation tyres! With high degradation tyres in 2012 we had a fantastic championship. If my memory is good, we had eight winners.

"But some drivers were not happy because the degradation meant they couldn't push on the tyres, so we moved on with lower degradation tyres.

"Probably the common understanding in F1 is we went in the wrong direction and we need to have a different approach for the future."