Pirelli: What’s new for 2013?

While the tyre rules imposed by the sport’s governing body remain exactly the same for 2013, with no aspect of the regulations altered, Pirelli has been able to make some far-reaching evolutions to the tyres – amounting to the biggest set of changes since the company entered Formula One.

A new colour

Visibly, the biggest difference is the brand new colour for the hard tyre, which will now be known as the P Zero Orange, changing from Silver. This will help viewers distinguish the hard compound more easily from the White medium compound when both are used together.

New compounds

All the compounds are generally softer, which leads to enhanced performance and a deliberately higher degree of degradation, with increased thermal degradation in particular. This should ensure a minimum of two pit stops at each race.

New structures

The new structures have been designed with a different philosophy and new materials that increase the footprint of the tyre, allowing more rubber to be in contact with the track and leading to better performance – particularly when it comes to combined traction and cornering. Secondly, it means that temperatures are more evenly distributed across the whole surface of the tyre, meaning that there is no localized heat build-up that can lead to blistering.

Wider working range

As a result of the modifications the 2013 tyres are generally easier to bring up to temperature and they have a more varied working range, making them more easily adaptable to a bigger variety of set-ups. Generally speaking, the hard and the soft tyre have a high working range, while the medium and the supersoft have a low working range. This should help the teams to understand the tyres – and how they interact with their cars – faster.

Bigger performance gaps between compounds

The different compounds will lead to an increased gap in performance between the compounds – even though they are all generally softer. The tyres have been engineered to provide a time difference of at least half a second per lap between each compound, whereas on occasions it was less than that last year. The bigger gap will make strategy all the more important, with more to gain by being on the right tyre at the right time.

More driveability in the wet

Both the Cinturato tyres have changed as well, with the construction of the rear tyres reengineered in particular, so that they provide more progressive traction and better warm-up in wet conditions. This helps to reduce snap oversteer and so makes the handling of the car more linear.

Increased weight

The new construction means that the weight of the tyres has increased slightly, but not enough to affect the performance of the cars. On average, each front tyre now weighs around 200 grams more than it did last year while each rear tyre is 700 grams heavier, meaning that approximately two kilograms have been added to the overall weight of a set of tyres. However, the overall minimum weight of the car has been adjusted in the 2013 technical regulations to
compensate for this.

More overtaking

Increased thermal degradation means that there will be more significant difference in speeds between different cars at different points in the race. This makes overtaking easier and places the emphasis on an effective race strategy.