Pirelli confirms new rain tyre for Imola Grand Prix

F1 News

Pirelli's Isola on the new rain tyre from Imola
15 May 2023 at 19:30
Last update 15 May 2023 at 20:20
  • Toby McLuskie

Weather forecasts for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix are not positive. Especially on Sunday - the day of the Grand Prix - a lot of rain is expected. In that case, F1 teams will use rain tyres, which have a new compound from next weekend, Pirelli announced on Monday.

With the new rain tyres, Formula 1 takes another step in making the sport more sustainable, Pirelli's Mario Isola told a press release from his company: "Starting from this grand prix, a new compound of full wet tyre will be introduced which will not require the use of tyre warmers beforehand. Track tests have shown even better performance than the previous Cinturato Blue full wet, even without the electric heating of the tyre. The result of studies carried out by Pirelli, it is the first concrete step towards the use of dry tyres without preheating."


Prescribed which tyres to use

Earlier, it was announced that Imola is testing the imposition of which tyres to use during qualifying. In regular qualifying, teams have the option to decide which compound from Pirelli to use in Q1, Q2 and Q3. For Imola, it is prescribed that hard tyres are used in Q1, mediums are mandatory in Q2 and in Q3 the drivers use softs. By the way, should qualifying be wet, a free choice of tyres will apply.

For the race in Italy next weekend, Pirelli will take the three soft compounds as dry-weather tyres. They are the C3, C4 and C5.