Pirelli makes gain from F1

The Pirelli tyres that took Kimi Raikkonen to victory in Sunday’s Australian Formula One Grand Prix bear little similarity to the rubber that rolls along under your road car, but there are still dividends to be translated from racetrack to suburban street.

Not in the secret components Pirelli cooks up for F1’s control tyres, but in the simulation testing done to develop them and the production processes used to build them.

“We do a lot of our work in a virtual way -- we have tyre models that simulate how they physically go around the track without actually making them,” explained Pirelli Motorsport Director, Paul Hembery.

“Those things now are at the point where we can change the structure of the tyre and get 90 per cent correlation of what they feel and what you are going to get if you build that tyre and go on the track.

“That technology will be where road development will go” he predicted. “You will find car companies will no longer go to a testing track for months on end trying to develop a car and tyre and suspension package just by going around in circles. They will do it all virtually.

“That’s a hidden area originally derived from the aeronautic industry … so that simulation area has been a huge area of technology transfer.”

Mr Hembrey said the production processes used to make the F1 tyres were now being applied to Pirelli high-performance tyres, while consistency and reliability of certain tyre ingredients had been enhanced by F1 learnings.

“Our mixing processes for making the compounds … are from our point of view amongst the most sophisticated in the world and that allows us to have very homogenous materials used, which gives you repeatability of performance,” he explained.

On average, Pirelli takes 1800 tyres to each grand prix and manufactures about 50,000 tyres per annum, including for testing. It has a choice of four different slicks, taking a softer and harder option to each race, as well an intermediate and a full-wet tyre.

At the end of each race all tyres -- whether used or unused -- are returned to Pirelli’s motorsport base at Didcot in England and then shipped on to a specialised plant where they are shredded and then burned at very high temperatures to make fuel for cement factories, road surface materials and other applications.

Pirelli has been the sole tyre supplier to F1 since 2011 and its contract expires at the end of this season. It is expected to pitch to retain the rights.

Hembrey said the role of the tyre supplier in motorsport was a difficult one at times, but it was a worthwhile involvement.

“We win every race and we finish last in every race,” he said. “I have been involved in motorsport most of my life and I have seen two situations -- I have been in open competition and I’ve won world championships and never seen the driver or team mention the tyres. In one case the world championship was won without any shadow of a doubt due to the tyre.

“I have been in control tyre championships where they only talk about the tyres when they explode.

“So it tends to be a strange world for a tyre-maker.

“The small difference we have made to make it worthwhile being involved is we have made the tyre a talking point, which is a very subtle change. So the tyre becomes part of the racing weekend strategy.

“We get talked about, not just when we don’t win … it has worked and if drivers at the end of day want to complain about tyres that’s no problem because they have the same tyres as the guy who won.”