The plan to lower the temperature of tire covers in Formula 1 from 70 degrees Celsius to 50 degrees Celsius for 2023 is being re-evaluated and likely dropped.
The move has long been planned as part of an additional change for 2024, where the use of tire heater blankets will be phased out entirely as part of the championship’s sustainability efforts.
However, lowering the temperature of the tire covers alone has proved unpopular with drivers and has grabbed the headlines, particularly since the US Grand Prix, where the first of two tire tests took place in 2023, before the second in Mexico last weekend became.
Red Bull world champion Max Verstappen says the temperature change will lead to “a lot of accidents”, while McLaren driver Lando Norris says “everybody will tear their car apart at some point”.
Pirelli’s Mexico experiments better and more sustainable
In response to driver comments after the Austin test, Pirelli ran an experiment for the Mexico test, heating the tires to 70 degrees in the electric blankets, but only for two hours rather than the usual three, like it would have been the case when the 50-degree limit was introduced.
Pirelli apparently found that this change uses less energy overall while minimizing driver concerns. Pirelli Motorsport Director Mario Isola then explains that for 2024 “the plan is still not to have electric blankets”, but adjustments will be made for the coming year.
“For the next year, the research says that warming up the tires at 70 degrees for two hours instead of three hours will save more energy than heating blankets at 50 degrees for three hours,” Isola said.
“This is the time when the electric blanket uses a lot more energy – like the stove at home,” he adds. “When you turn it on, there is a first phase where the temperature rises to the desired temperature and then it stabilizes. But to keep the temperature at the desired level you have to use energy. So that’s the point. “
What steps Pirelli now has in mind
Isola presented Pirelli’s results to the drivers at the regular briefing after the Mexican Grand Prix. He says drivers agreed they would prefer Formula 1 to take the approach of making tires hotter for a shorter period of time.
“For me, that’s a reasonable solution,” says Isola. “As I said, we also save more energy. Now we all have data [aus dem Heizungsansatz vor dem Mexiko-Test] analyze, because the test was natural [erst] on Friday and we didn’t have much time to analyze the data. Of the [Rest des] The plan is to find the five compounds that we want to homologate for 2023.”
“Then we take the final version of the tires to Abu Dhabi for post-season testing, to allow the drivers to test the final compound choices. And to propose a full strategy for 2023, which will see the tires heated at 70 degrees for two hours That’s the plan for the moment,” said the Italian.
Pirelli is understood to have also pitched its idea for the 2023 tire heater blankets to the FIA and Formula 1 organisation, and received positive feedback on the new approach, rather than lowering the temperature of the heater blankets to 50 degrees.
Pirelli also wants to test at Grands Prix next year
Isola also suggests tire testing, which was conducted in Austin and Mexico, could resume at certain events next year.
They are simply used to provide Pirelli with data on how the tire compounds manufactured by Pirelli perform, and not to develop the specific construction of the tires – which requires longer private testing events as the cars have to be adjusted to get the right data .
“What you call ‘competitive testing’ is an option for the future,” says Isola. “Especially next year when we have 24 races there is a second part of the season with a lot of overseas events. We know how stressed the teams and the team staff are because they have to travel a lot and so on.”
“So if we have that opportunity, we don’t force the teams to be on the road for another two to three days for our tire tests. And we can use that in a second part of the season.”
Have teams fought back against temperature drops?
With the plan to ban electric blankets for 2024 still pending at this stage, it would be logical to expect that either Pirelli would have to make all-new tire constructions for this year, or teams would have to make significant changes to their constructions to accommodate tire warm-up in to improve the first stints.
Some engineers cautioned that the implications of the proposed reduction in tire cover heating to 50 degrees were recognized very late in the design process of the 2023 cars, which also contributed to resistance to the plan’s implementation.