Pirelli seem to be off to a good start as the new sole supplier of tyres to Formula One. They’re happy with their tests and the teams and drivers appear to be impressed with their offerings so far.
Now comes rumours that the Italian tyres manufacturers are planning to use different colour codes for their tyre compounds so that the spectators can pick up on the team’s strategy more clearly.
Bridgestone introduced a similar concept in 2007 when they painted a white stripe on one of the grooves of the soft tyres to differentiate them from the hard compound ones.
Then when slicks returned to Formula 1 in 2009, Bridgestone decided to paint a green circle on the sidewall of the tyres – however, this was not easy to spot on TV.
According to the latest rumours, Pirelli will go a step further and try to use different colours on the tyre wall for each compound which would clearly indicate which tyre a team is using on TV as well.
It is reported that the super-soft compound will be red, the soft tyres will be white, the mediums will be blue and hard tyres are going to be yellow. Other than that, the sidewall lettering on the full wet tyres is going to be yellow and the intermediate ones will be red.
Alex Kapadia, Operations Team