Pirelli: A year in statistics

Throughout the 2012 season one thing has remained a major talking point within the paddock: Pirelli’s controversial tyre compounds. From the word go in pre-season testing at Jerez and Barcelona, it quickly became apparent that 2012 would be dominated by Pirelli’s new assortment of P Zero and Cinturato tyres,

Formula 1 visited twenty different tracks throughout the 2012 season, and each one presented different characteristics and therefore different behavior from the Pirelli tyres. Some tracks saw tyre wear become a monumentally race changing factor, and therefore largely contributed to the unbelievably unpredictable start to the season which saw seven different winners including the likes of Pastor Maldonado and Nico Rosberg. Eventually, some form of normality was resumed as the likes of Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel returned to their winning ways.

However, the tyres still remained a pivotal factor throughout the season. Some disliked how much the tyres dictated the sport throughout the year, with drivers visibly opting for a more conservative driving style to make the tyres last longer. This put drivers such as Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher at a great disadvantage, as they were two of many drivers who drove in a style which wore the tyres out much faster than the likes of Jenson Button and Sergio Perez who seemed unperturbed by the tyres wear rate.

Over the due course of the season, Pirelli provided the sport with 31,800 race tyres of which 22,500 were dry and 9,300 were wet. An additional 6,600 were supplied to the teams for the Jerez, Barcelona and Mugello tests. Of these vast numbers, 6% were super-soft, 25% were soft, 21% were medium, 17% were hard, 18% were intermediate, 11% were wet and only 2% were development tyres. Despite the staggering amount of tyres issued by Pirelli, not all were used. Only 21,400 dry tyres and 2,100 wet tyres were used by the teams throughout the season, which still adds up to a pretty unimaginable amount of rubber per season.

Although refueling is banned in Formula 1 and drivers now only pit for new tyres or front wings, these notorious Pirelli tyres still saw a combined total of 957 pit stops throughout 2012, of which 14 were for drive-through penalties and two were for stop-and-go penalties. The most pit stops carried out in one race was 76 in Malaysia, a wet/dry race which was eventually won by Fernando Alonso who only carried out three pit stops on his way to victory. The least amount of pit stops in one race was at the penultimate United States Grand Prix, which only saw a meagre 24 pit stops. The fastest pit stop of the season was carried out by McLaren on Jenson Button at the German Grand Prix, a stop which lasted a mesmerizing 2.31 seconds!

Overall Pirelli have started 242 Formula 1 races since the inaugural season back in 1950, a season which saw Pirelli supply tyres to the likes of Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Ferrari. Since then, F1 has seen numerous other tyres suppliers enter and leave the sport including Dunlop, Goodyear, Bridgestone and Michelin. Pirelli have won 83 races in their time in Formula 1, and will most certainly add to that tally in the years to come as they continue to fox the drivers and thrill the spectators by providing Formula 1 with some of the most controversial and temperamental tyres to spice up the action.

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