Pirelli completed two days of wet running this week at Paul Ricard in the south of France, with Pedro de la Rosa again in action for the Italian tyre manufacturer as it gears up to take over from Bridgestone as the sport’s official tyre supplier.
The Spaniard, who was working on Pirelli's two rain tyres, completed over 826 kilometres at the wheel of the Toyota TF109, on a track that was artificially dampened using an advanced sprinkler system.
The tyres were also tested at Valencia at the beginning of last month and Pirelli reported that plenty of progress was made and that the design of the rain tyres have now been finalised. Pirelli will now continue wet weather testing next year.
"We're very pleased with the outcome of this wet test session,” said Pirelli Motorsport Director Paul Hembery. “The sprinkler facilities at Paul Ricard allowed us to carry out all the work that we intended in consistent conditions and maximise our time there to the best effect.”
Pirelli now moves to Abu Dhabi, where the F1 teams will have their first taste of the new rubber next week in a two-day test from November 19-20 following this weekend's season finale.
Pirelli is taking two types of its slick tyre to the Abu Dhabi test: the medium tyre as the prime and the soft tyre as the option. Each of the 12 F1 cars present will have eight sets of tyres available over the course of the two days, meaning that Pirelli will take nearly 500 covers to the Middle East.
“With our European campaign over, Abu Dhabi will be the first indicator of where we are really at,” Hembery added.
“It's still a big step into the unknown but we believe that we have a solid foundation of products now with which to make more progress - after less than three months of running to date."
Series
Formula 1
Personalities
Pedro de la Rosa
Other
Get your official Formula 1 tickets at Sportstadium.com
| Pedro de la Rosa | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
| More Pedro de la Rosa photos | |||
English
Nederlands
Español
Italiano
