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F1: Pirelli to give teams ''a challenge'' in 2013

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Antoine Cremer
Pirelli's top man Paul Hembery revealed at the Autosport International show that he wants teams to have more challenges next season.

"Maybe towards the end of the season we were a little bit too conservative, [so] we are hoping we can give a challenge," the Briton is quoted saying by Crash.net.

The Pirelli tires, when they were first introduced in 2011, made the races much harder to predict than in the past. Teams often had to gamble on how long such or such compound could last. But after two years of racing, and much data gathered, the challenges are not as tough as they once were for the teams.

Which is why Hembery's ambition is to once more shake things up a little.

Pirelli, F1
"Yup, that one is round too." (Photo: Pirelli)

"[F1 teams] have the best engineers in the world, the best drivers and they really found a way of not degrading the tires, not graining them," he said.

"We will be taking more aggressive approach, [with] more aggressive compounds, and we hope we can create some element of surprise."

Hembery also warned that it might be sound to wait until the start of the season, in Australia, to assess the changes. Winter testing is not always the best of indicators.

"We will se how winter testing goes, [but that] can be a bit strange as conditions are abnormal," he points out. "[Temperatures] tend to be below 15, which can give you rather strange results in terms of compound performance."


Antoine Cremer
Antoine Cremer
Automotive expert