Pirelli sees no problem in disposing of thermal covers

This summer, after the British round of the championship, Pirelli will complete its tire testing program for 2024. Subsequently, the Italian company’s specialists will analyze all the information collected and present their findings to the FIA ​​and Formula 1 teams, on the basis of which a decision will be made whether it is worth refraining from preheating rubber with thermal covers in the near future.

Last week, following the Spanish Grand Prix, another Pirelli tire test took place at the Barcelona circuit, with Mick Schumacher in particular driving a Mercedes car. George Russell and Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz also worked on prototype tires.

In all, tire manufacturers must dedicate a program of such tests to 20 days, and if Formula 1 finally abandons the long-standing practice of heating rubber in thermal covers, it will significantly reduce both costs and environmental impact.

The German edition of Auto Motor und Sport cites the following statistics: only the logistics costs for one season decrease by 600 thousand euros, and another half a million can be saved within three years if you refuse to purchase new thermal covers . It will also reduce electricity consumption. When the maximum permissible temperature of thermal covers was reduced in 2019, only this measure resulted in significant savings.

The main challenge for Pirelli is that the new tires must perform effectively over a wider temperature range. This problem cannot be solved quickly, so the search for optimal solutions already started in 2022. Initially, the intention was to achieve this mainly through changes in the design of the tire, leaving the line of compositions the same.

During the tests, the company’s specialists observed how the frames of the new design interact with the existing compositions, after which the temperature of the thermal covers gradually decreased. The tests were carried out on different circuits – in Le Castellet, in Jerez and in Bahrain, where the asphalt naturally warmed up in different ways, the range of these temperatures was from 20 to 45 degrees.

The plan of the tire manufacturers was this: to study the behavior of tires under different conditions, and then make the necessary changes in the design of the casings. The first more or less good results were achieved in Bahrain: cold tires reached normal operating temperature at the 4th corner of the track. At the same time, the car ran about a second slower on the first lap than on tires preheated with thermal covers.

This is an important point for racing safety and the FIA ​​is striving at Pirelli to reduce as much as possible the time it takes for the tires to warm up on the track under racing conditions. After all, if the driver is forced to drive at a lower speed when leaving the pits after a pit stop, the risk of incidents seriously increases.

Also, one of the requirements of the federation is that even insufficiently heated rubber can withstand all loads, so that no structural changes occur and no damage occurs.

The level of air pressure in a cold tire does not exceed 18 PSI (pounds per square inch), while in a hot tire in a cooler bag it is 23 PSI. On the track during the race, the pressure rises to 24.5 – 25 PSI, and this leads to an increase in stress on the tire carcass.

During the tests in Barcelona, ​​the Pirelli specialists first of all paid attention to the behavior of cold rubber in the morning, when the weather was still cool and the asphalt had not had time to warm up. It will be the same at Silverstone.

On the Catalan ring, such experiments are facilitated by the configuration, in which sustained high-speed turns predominate. Accordingly, the load on the rubber is higher and the heating process takes less time. The same is expected on the British circuit.

If the teams receive and analyze the general information from Pirelli after all the tests, they will have to decide together with the FIA ​​whether it is possible to completely dispense with thermal covers already next year.

Pirelli does not expect any difficulties in that respect, because pre-heating rain tires is already a thing of the past and now this practice is being extended to slicks.

However, it is foreseeable that the riders will be especially against this. The potential rejection of thermal covers means that they will have to somehow adapt and change their arsenal of rubber warming methods. But team strategists will also have to think, as there will be problems with the use of popular tactics such as “undercutting”, ie when the driver is ahead of the opponent due to an earlier pit stop.

The key to a successful “cutting” is the fastest possible pace on the circle leaving the pits, and if the rubber is cold this will be problematic.