Following the last test at Barcelona, Pirelli has continued its running ahead of 2011 by heading to Paul Ricard in France. This week, Pedro de la Rosa completed a total of 317 laps as the Spaniard analysed the Soft and Super Soft Slick compounds, labelling the two days of running as ‘the most productive yet’.
Due to the FIA’s technical regulations, the four dry tyre compounds will remain Hard, Medium, Soft and Super Soft next year, despite Pirelli rejoining the sport in order to replace the departing Bridgestone. At the ultra-modern Le Castellet circuit, de la Rosa drove a total of 158 laps on Day 1 and another 157 laps on Day 2.
After proceedings where somewhat affected by damp conditions on the first morning, the Barcelona man was forced to continue development examination of the Milan-based company’s Wet tyres before switching to the Soft Slick compound once the track surface had dried out, with short runs preceding longer stints.
The weather was better on the second day, with the technical team able to make the most of bright conditions and work on tyre construction, with the latest evolutions of Pirelli’s products being used as a result of data collected at previous tests, where technicians had chopped up tyres in order to view their performances.
In the afternoon, de la Rosa – once again at the wheel of a 2009 Toyota TF109 chassis – moved on to the Super Soft type, combining short runs of seven laps with longer tours of 20 laps before light levels began to drop from 5 pm onwards.
“These have been two of the most productive days of testing that we have seen yet and I’m particularly encouraged by the consistency of the times that we managed to set on both the short and the long runs, demonstrating that the tyres are quick to reach a constant level of peak performance,” the 39-year-old explained.
“There were a number of interesting solutions that we have started to investigate in depth. We enjoyed perfect reliability from the car and the tyres, which allowed us to cover more than a thousand kilometres (over 620 miles) and take some important steps forward in the development programme.”
Pirelli has now confirmed that it will continue to test at Paul Ricard for two days next week prior to the weekend which follows Abu Dhabi’s season-ending Grand Prix, when the sport’s teams enjoy their first chance of running on the new tyres at Yas Marina.
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