F1: Pirelli outline upcoming 2023 tire test plans

Pirelli’s Mario Isola has explained the plans for the 2023 tire compound tests that have been scheduled for free practice at two of the remaining races this year.

As the 2022 season enters its final stages, attention is turning towards 2023 for car designs as well as tire design and compounds. With this year being the first for the new 18-inch wheels, tweaks to Pirelli’s 2023 tire range are expected to be made.

Isola explained the test plans as he spoke to media during the Italian Grand Prix, as he revealed the intention of the 2023 compounds is to help reduce understeer as a characteristic.

Franz TOST (AlphaTauri), Mattia BINOTTO (Ferrari), Mario ISOLA (Pirelli)

The second practice sessions at Austin and Suzuka will be extended to 90 minutes to allow for the tire testing, with the teams set to roll out on unmarked compounds that only Pirelli will know.

“The plan is to test mainly compounds,” Isola explained.

“We have the opportunity to use FP2 that will be 90 minutes and not 60 – all the 20 cars running different plans. As usual, they are blind, so teams will not know what they are testing.

“But that’s really important for us. It’s important to find new opportunities of testing because with such a busy calendar, with 24 races next year, it will be…I don’t want to say almost impossible to find the space to test, but the European season is shorter.

“To stay on track Tuesday and Wednesday after the race is difficult, so we need to find new opportunities. The teams were very collaborative with us in finding solutions, and one solution is to test during free practice.

“I know it’s a big effort from them because they are fighting for the championship and they will lose one session, but it’s really important for us to provide a product next year that is even better compared to what we have this year.

“We are happy with the current product, but we know teams are developing the cars and performance is increasing. We need to reduce a little bit the understeer, we need to fine-tune a couple of compounds, and we need the final validation on track to be sure we are going in the right direction to have even a better championship next year.”

“We are planning to give them run plans with a mileage similar to what they have during a normal FP2,” he said.

“All the teams will run the same number of laps with blind prototypes, as I said. We are trying not to change too much the construction during this test because they set up the car for the race weekend, so it’s important we don’t have a completely different construction and oblige them to change too much the car’s set-up.

“So, working with the teams, we are trying to find clever solutions in order to give us the possibility to test and not to disrupt too much the weekend for them.”