With EBD being banned at the start of the season was it difficult initially for Pirelli to assess how much degradation to build into this year’s tyres?

PH: “There are so many variables to consider in Formula One and certainly that was one of them: I think nobody, including the teams themselves, fully appreciated the extent to which the diffuser ban would have an effect this year. But being new to Formula One last year, we’ve always been used to working with unknown parameters and so we built our tyres to work effectively within a wide range of downforce conditions on different cars. That’s been the case again with our design philosophy this season. Our test car up to last year, for example, was a 2009 Toyota that did not benefit from blown diffuser technology and yet our tyres adapted themselves well to the current cars in their debut season.”

Now the teams are regaining some of the downforce they initially lost, are you able to adjust the compounds to keep the same levels of degradation we saw at the start of the season or are you locked in meaning the teams learn from their previous mistakes and the racing becomes more protracted?

PH: “No, unlike last year we haven’t adjusted any of the existing compounds since the start of the season although we have briefly run some experimental compounds during free practice in Britain and Germany this year – most of which were affected by rain! The Formula One teams operate at such a high level that whatever measures you introduce, they will always get on top of them in a very short amount of time. That’s certainly the pattern that we’ve seen in the past. For example, some teams were saying that our tyre nominations towards the end of last year were too conservative – but these were the same very compounds that some people thought were too radical at the start of the season.”

Is it plausible for a driver to get a bad tyre even from the same batch? As with anything in manufacturing I assume that getting parity is paramount but guess occasionally a rogue tyre could get through?

PH: “It’s practically impossible – and it certainly hasn’t happened so far. Although we’re naturally dealing with extremely narrow tolerances at the cutting edge of motorsport, quality control in not an issue as we have the infrastructure to ensure that nothing is compromised during our production process. All the F1 tyres are subjected to a strict quality control process that includes X-ray and shearography. We also check all the interior and exterior dimensions are checked for uniformity, and the raw materials are also checked before they enter the production process.”

Can we look forward to another aggressive set of compounds being introduced in 2013? Will the Supersoft once again remain unchanged?

PH: “We’ll certainly see some new compounds next year, which is what our test programme this year is geared towards. Each season we basically have to keep on reinventing ourselves, because innovation in Formula One happens at such a pace. We’ll need a slightly clearer picture of the full 2013 technical regulations before we set the specification in stone, but just like we did this year we want to give the teams something to think about and show our tyres in the best possible light, which is why we’re involved in Formula One in the first place. We’ve not decided yet whether or not the supersoft will be changed, but chances are that it will certainly be evolved in some way.”

I heard a rumour that Pirelli wanted assistance from the FIA/Teams to alter the allocation rules, as drivers always tend to have a set of set of the harder compounds left at the end of the race weekend. Is this simply a case of swapping the spare harder compound for its softer counterpart to encourage a better qualifying scenario?

PH: “That would be one solution and it has a lot of merit, but in the end we are here to answer to the needs of the teams, not to dictate to the teams what their needs should be. In Formula One, there’s rarely a universal desire for change. But we think that qualifying is definitely an area that needs to be looked at in future, simply because the fans aren’t getting to see the cars on the track as much as they could do on Saturdays – and we don’t think this is right when people pay a lot of money to see the drivers in action. This sport is all about entertainment as well and it’s important not to forget that.”

In relation to the question above do Pirelli destroy the unused tyres from each race or repurpose them at other GP’s?

PH: “If they’ve been mounted on a wheel then they have to be recycled as we use a special adhesive to fit them. If they haven’t been fitted, then they can be reallocated – but as we make tyres in bespoke batches for each race, we don’t tend to have too many unused tyres hanging around. The only exception is when we’ve had a very wet weekend and not used the full allocation of slick tyres.”

We have also heard that Pirelli were interested in having a qualifying tyre to spice up Q3 and effectively get everyone in that session on track. Is this a possibility for 2013 as some have been critical of teams that currently elect not to run to ‘save’ tyres.

PH: “That’s still very much up in the air but realistically we don’t see it happening in the short term. From a personal point of view we’d love to see qualifying tyres back, but it has to make sense for the teams as well, who are ultimately our customers. And for the teams, any sort of change inevitably means that they end up investing more money in order to accumulate as much data as possible. Because of that, there’s not a great deal of support for qualifying tyres at the moment – as much as it would be a lot of fun.”

Pirelli are contracted to F1 as a tyre supplier until the end of 2013, 2014 will see the inception of a new rule set in F1 which will give us a new engine for the first time since a singular engine type (V8) was required in 2006. With this it was muted that F1 would also switch from a 13″ wheel rim to a more road relevant 17″ rim and be accompanied by a much lower profile tyre (in order to keep the same rolling radius) have Pirelli been in talks with the FIA / Teams in regard to this? If so what sort of challenge does it represent to build a tyre like this with so many other regulation changes being enacted?

PH: “We’ve not had any advanced discussions about this, because as it stands our contract runs until the end of 2013 and until that is reconfirmed there is not much point in going into a load of extra detail. But it’s clear that a 17-inch low profile tyre would have more market relevance than the current 13-inch tyre. Having said that, we would have to change the whole philosophy of F1 tyre design if we went down that route: it would be literally starting from a blank sheet of paper. A 17-inch tyre would also alter the whole way in which the car was designed, so we are really talking about wholesale rather than detail changes that would have important ramifications in every area. I’m sure that if we were given such a brief we would be able to fulfill it, but we’re still a long way away from it happening.”

Did Pirelli ask the FIA to add the weight distribution rule into the regulations when you joined in 2011? Was this in order to predetermine the wear levels with minimized data? Will this be something that Pirelli continue to insist upon? As obviously without the weight distribution mandated some teams could leverage better performance from the tyres. 

PH: “No, we don’t see ourselves as being in a position to insist upon anything: instead we’re here to give the teams what they would like. The weight distribution rule wasn’t something that we specifically asked for, although of course it did make our lives slightly easier. It’s not down to us whether or not that rule stays though. You can legislate all you like, but Formula One is a meritocracy and the best teams will always find a way to gain an advantage: if it’s not by playing with the weight distribution, then there will be some other way.”

Pirelli is the sole supplier of tyres, how would Pirelli feel about there being more than 1 tyre supplier like in the Bridgestone/Michelin days? Could this be something Pirelli would ever accept?