June 25 – Pirelli will bring the P Zero Orange hard tires and the P Zero White medium tires at Silverstone for the Great Britain Grand Prix. In fact, Pirelli finds a second home in Didcot, its supplier and logistics hub situated less than an hour from the circuit. Only for Friday practice, each driver will have two extra sets of hard tires, such as those seen in Spain. The Silverstone circuit is one of the oldest and fastest on the F1 calendar: its particular layout causes tires to drain a lot of energy, with consequential effects on their degradation and wear. A judicious use of strategy has proved in the past a key element to win the English race. According to Paul Hembery “Silverstone, with its high speed and flowing corners, is in stark contrast with the Canadian circuit, more of a stop and start type, though both are weary on the tires. For this reason, we chose the two harder compounds for the Great Britain Grand Prix, with a new glue that binds the tread and steel belt, designed to eliminate the isolated cases of delamination seen earlier in the season. The actual construction of the tire does not change, as we haven’t reached team unanimity on this point: we hold this hypothesis in stand-by, should it be necessary in the future. During the Friday free practice we will provide pilots with the same prototype hard tires tried on Friday in Spain, since these have a longer lifetime in order to give the team the opportunity to test this new solution on a different circuit and collect more data. Of course, another important factor is the weather at Silverstone, notoriously variable: it would not be a surprise to see the Cinturato Green intermediate and Cinturato Blue wet on the track during the weekend. For this reason, it is very difficult to predict the number of pit stops. Last year, we had a two-stop strategy, in dry conditions after two days of rain; but this year the compounds are softer, so if it doesn’t rain, we could see between three and four stops. We will be possible to advance a more accurate forecast after practice.”
