Izola: We haven’t noticed anything strange in three days

Mario Isola, head of the Pirelli Racing Division, summarized the results of the tests from the point of view of tire engineers, emphasizing that the information collected over three days generally corresponds to the calculation.

Mario Isola: “The teams completed many laps, using many sets of tires, and it was important for us to understand the load the tires of the new cars are under. While not much different from last year, these loads are somewhat different.

From last year’s experience we know that the tire overheating problem has returned to some extent, although this was less apparent two years ago when we just switched to 18-inch tires.

This is due to the modernization process of the cars, and during the tests all teams tried to reduce the degree of overheating. That is why most of them chose to work mainly with rubber of the C3 compound, with medium hardness, which is the softest of the compounds that will be used during the Bahrain Grand Prix.

If you treat your tires correctly you can reduce the impact of overheating and this will give you a significant advantage. And maybe not just here, at this track, but throughout the season.

Some teams decided to follow a slightly different program, for example Alpine chose to focus on working with C1 rubber, but in general I can say that the information we collected during the tests does not differ much from the calculated data obtained on the simulator.

We didn’t notice any strange things in three days, the condition of the track surface was very good and it was very important for the teams to work the last hours of testing as efficiently as possible, because now the conditions are almost the same. the same as during the race weekend. It is therefore not surprising that many teams completed long series of laps and simulated races at the end of the day.

I think Ferrari has made progress with the tires compared to last year, and the tire degradation on their new SF-24 is clearly less. Although everyone knows that Red Bull remains the model in this area. But it seems to me that Ferrari has also done well, at least that is what the data we have collected shows.

It seems that at least three or four teams, including Mercedes and McLaren, are ready to challenge Red Bull, or at least will try. I foresee that there will be more competition on the circuits and that the championship will follow an exciting scenario.”