Pirelli evaluating minimum tyre pressures change

A number of teams and drivers were unhappy with the high 22psi limit that has been set for the new Baku street circuit.

Lewis Hamilton labelled Pirelli's limits as 'ridiculous' after Friday's track action, because of the compromise it was having on ultimate performance.

"It's strange coming here this weekend, we have a new record in tyre pressures, so they were obviously worried coming here this weekend," said the Mercedes driver.

"They pumped up the rears to 22psi, which is the highest we've ever had for any tyre, which is ridiculous. As long as there are no blow-ups, we'll do what we can with that."

Pirelli racing manager Mario Isola said, however, that the Italian company was ready to revise the pressure limits if data being analysed after the first day of action showed it had overestimated the forces that would be put through the tyres on the street circuit.

"What is going to happen now is we have the data from FP1 and FP2, and we are going to analyse the data, compare the real telemetry data with the simulations to understand if we need to modify the prescriptions," explained Isola.

"Of course we don't intend to modify the camber because the teams already set up the car with the camber, but we need to understand if we have room to modify pressure. That can mean going down or going up.

"If we underestimate the severity of the circuit maybe we are obliged to go up, or if we overestimate we can go down. Usually this doesn't happen for a circuit that we know because the simulations are very accurate and the historical data are available when we decide the preview.

"We do the same analysis after FP2 and in 100 percent of the cases until now we confirm the prescription. This could be the first case in which we have to change the prescription."

No data

Isola said Pirelli opted for such a high pressure limit because it had no confirmed data on the severity of the asphalt being laid for the Baku track.

"Our prescriptions come from a system that is now quite solid in which we consider the speed, the load, and the camber," he explained.

"And from all those numbers, this data, we find the pressure, we decide and we define the pressure.

"But of course this is a completely new circuit, so we have no historical data - we just have the simulation that we received from the teams.

"Also the teams were struggling with the simulation because, for example, the asphalt was laid down in the last couple of weeks, so we had no possibility to measure the tarmac roughness in advance.

"When we decided the three compounds, the tarmac was not there – and also when the teams gave us their simulation, they had to use a standard tarmac in their simulation. That is why we had different simulation across the teams and we made some additional analysis and we came with this pressure."

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