Pirelli's Paul providing practice 'prototypes'

Pirelli’s Paul Hembery.

Pirelli’s motorsport head, Paul Hembery, has confirmed that all the teams in Formula 1 will be given an extra set of tyres for use in practice sessions. Earlier in the year, many of the team bosses had complained about how the Pirellis don’t last a session and thus making it very hard to extract data off the car. That issue now will, however, be solved with the help of the new ‘prototype’ tyres.

“As permitted by the current regulations, we’ll be supplying an extra set of prototype hard compound tyres for free practice, which will hopefully ensure that all the cars run throughout these sessions,” he said.

“It’s something we wanted to do to encourage all the teams to run as much as possible right from the start, especially with the rookie drivers, to give fans the spectacle they deserve to see.”

In China, Bernie Ecclestone spoke about the allotment of an extra set of tyres to make the practice a better ‘show’. The practice sessions rarely get any attendance and this could hurt Formula 1. Keeping that in mind, along with the teams’ demands, Pirelli have released these new tyres.