Pirreli Debuts 18-inch Tyre at Silverstone

Pirelli achieved all they set out to accomplish in the demonstration of a prototype 18-inch Formula One tyre, according to the Italian company’s motorsport director Paul Hembery.

Pirelli is introducing a new 18-inch tyre design concept to showcase what Formula One could look like in the near future. But rather than an abstract design, this is a fully functional tyre, capable of completing demonstration runs around Silverstone during last week’s in-season test.

Lotus trialled the low profile tyres on the second day of in-season testing at Silverstone, with Charles Pic racking up 14 laps in total. His fastest time was a 1m 44.728s, nine seconds down on the midday benchmark of 1m 35.544s set by Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat.

The 18-inch tyre is an idea that Pirelli has promoted ever since the company was first announced as Formula One official tyre supplier back in 2010. Larger wheel and tyre sizes reflect modern market trends; with the adoption of a larger size invariably leading to even greater technology transfer between Formula One tyres and road car tyres.

These tyres, developed and created by Pirelli’s engineers as part of the company’s premium strategy, serve only as an example of what is possible. However, the technology is in place already to produce this type of tyre with the same standards of performance and reliability set by the current 13-inch rubber.

Indeed, with a new tyre concept right at the beginning of its development curve, the possibilities are almost limitless. These include even larger sizes in future.

A new 18-inch tyre would not be without its technical challenges to produce, although the pay-off would be increased rigidity through having less flexibility in the sidewalls. Nonetheless, this necessary movement forms an important part of the current Formula One car’s suspension and damping.

A smaller sidewall would also inevitably lead to drastically reduced branding space. In spite of this, Pirelli is completely ready and capable to move ahead with development of such a tyre should the teams wish for it to happen. And proof of this proactive capability lies in the existence of the tyres that have been circulating around Silverstone.

Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery commented: “The 13-inch tyre is no longer relevant to the everyday road user, because even an 18-inch tyre is used by standard vehicles these days. While 18-inch tyres would be a big step for Formula One, there are many other motorsport series that already use this size. So there’s scope to go even bigger than that in Formula One in years to come. In order to underline F1’s role as a test bed for future mobility solutions, we believe that it benefits everybody to have as close a link between road car tyres and competition tyres as possible: a belief we have held ever since we introduced the low profile tyre from competition to road use back in the 1970s. However, we’d like to emphasise that this move is not something that we are actively pushing for, as our role in Formula One is not to instigate changes. Instead, it’s to help teams and drivers make the most out of the equipment, regulations and resources they have at their disposal – whatever they decide that framework is going to be.”

The decision to demonstrate this ground-breaking prototype at Silverstone has been taken at the very top of the company, in order to showcase Pirelli’s reactivity and technical know-how.

The tyre we saw is principally designed to demonstrate aesthetics rather than performance. We could have a production-ready example within months if required. In the meantime, we look forward to hearing everybody’s views about our latest concept,

“We weren’t looking for performance,” Hembery told reporters at Silverstone; “The priority was to show people what a Formula One car would look like with a change of rim.”

While the evaluation is aimed at a possible switch in 2017, Hembery said Pirelli could make them available one year earlier, from the start of 2016, should the sport desire so.