Formula 1 | Pirelli not worried about higher-than-expected pace for 2022 F1 cars

Mario Isola has also confirmed reports that the 2022 F1 cars will not be much slower than this year’s cars.

According to the latest figures revealed by Pat Symonds, the technical director of the FIA, we can expect to be only half a second to a second behind the F1 of 2021 and this from the start of the next one. season.

Previously, everyone feared that the new rules – designed to tighten up the hierarchy and improve peloton racing and overtaking – would be between two and five seconds slower by some in the paddock.

« From our side, we expected the new cars to be two to three seconds slower than the current ones. That’s what we expected at the start, » explains Isola, Pirelli’s F1 director.

« Over time, the team’s simulations have become more and more reliable. Now the prediction is that new cars won’t be much slower, if not slower at all. »

The big problem is that Pirelli’s track tests to develop the new 18-inch tires for 2022 were carried out with certain constraints. Who will ultimately be superior! But Isola puts any potential problem to come into perspective.

« The mules used in 2016 to prepare the wider tires of 2017 were also five seconds slower than the actual cars. In general, we take a more conservative approach by assuming that next year’s cars will be faster. »

« And we take into account that the cars are going to evolve a lot. There could be a two-second gain between the start and the end of the season. Ultimately, we come to about the same performance. »

Some attention has also been paid to Pirelli’s rain tires, but Mario Isola insists that it is in fact a « visibility problem that we cannot solve ».

Isola believes that a third rain tire – an extreme rain tire – in addition to the wet and mid-size tires – would not be a solution.

“After Spa there was a lot of talk about it, what of course we could do on our side. But we’re talking about reducing the tire count, taking the sport forward in terms of sustainability – so should- make us another one? I don’t think that’s the way to go. « 

« And that wouldn’t solve the visibility problem. The water always has to go somewhere. »

This vision is shared by Ross Brawn who admitted this week that F1 took up the subject and launched some studies to see how to better deflect the water (sprays) ejected from F1.