How Pirelli is testing 2026 F1 tyres with out 2026 vehicles

Pirelli has entered the following stage of getting ready its smaller tyres for the 2026 System 1 season, with Ferrari and McLaren conducting take a look at work of its tougher tyre compounds at Barcelona this week.

Quite a lot of consideration has gone to Lewis Hamilton persevering with his preparations along with his new Italian employer alongside team-mate Charles Leclerc and McLaren’s Lando Norris, however it can’t be careworn sufficient that lap instances from the two-day take a look at on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya are solely meaningless, closely relying on the run programmes requested by Pirelli to check its smaller prototype tyres for 2026 and its compounds on the tougher finish of the dimensions.

Whereas Hamilton can have benefited from extra seat time in a Ferrari from final yr, with the most recent procedures, steering wheel, Ferrari energy unit and so forth, the largest benefactor from the take a look at is Pirelli itself. The Italian tyre producer is up towards it to check and produce tyres which are narrower – 25mm on the entrance and 30mm on the rear – and smaller in diameter, from 720mm to 705mm-710mm entrance to rear, for use on vastly completely different vehicles subsequent yr.

The problem for Pirelli is that it has no consultant vehicles to check its new rubber on because the new-for-2026 vehicles characteristic considerably diminished drag and fewer downforce generated by the ground and diffuser.

Preliminary plans to cut back total downforce by 40 % have been watered right down to round 15 % following considerations over slower lap instances, which at the moment are anticipated to be extra according to present efficiency ranges. However the brand new era of vehicles is considerably completely different in how and the place they generate efficiency, so Pirelli has to depend on the imperfect answer of mule vehicles – equipment from 2022-2024 with trimmed wings – to gather real-life information from its new rubber.

Following an preliminary take a look at with Aston Martin in September – in its 2022 mannequin – and up to date wet-compound working at Le Castellet, Ferrari and McLaren carried out work in Barcelona in newer vehicles with considerably decrease wing ranges, showing with totally flat mainplanes extra akin to one thing you’d see in Baku or Las Vegas relatively than on the high-downforce Montmelo circuit.

The general downforce ranges of those mule vehicles shall be comparatively near the start-of-2026 specs, however as a result of the vehicles are so completely different it’s nonetheless tough for Pirelli to appropriately reproduce the hundreds its tyres shall be subjected to. It’s subsequently counting on being recurrently fed simulations from groups to remain forward of the curve.

“The primary exams had been primarily devoted to know how the mule vehicles are working, as a result of clearly they’re completely different,” Pirelli’s motorsport chief Mario Isola informed Motorsport.com. “The one factor we will do is to constantly ask for up to date 2026 simulations from the groups, principally. We should replace our know-how and replace our development based on the information that we obtain.

“We can not simply depend on the mule vehicles as a result of it gained’t be wise, and we are going to proceed to supply them a digital mannequin of the tyre to make use of of their simulators they usually come again to us with their suggestions. And that is the suitable route we must always proceed in.”

Each decreasing downforce total and altering how it’s generated can have a serious affect on the character of the hundreds 2026’s smaller tyres are going to be subjected to. For Pirelli it’s subsequently essential to get the interior development of its new tyres in the suitable ballpark. Any additional fine-tuning can then be achieved via tweaking the compounds.

The Italians usually are not simply taking anticipated 2026 efficiency into consideration, as F1 squads at all times have a tendency to search out speedy good points firstly of a laws cycle, and Pirelli subsequently has to have sufficient headroom to account for increased tyre masses additional down the road.

One vital problem added to the combo is the upcoming X-mode, a DRS-like type of energetic aerodynamics which adjustments the angle of the entrance and rear wings on the straights for increased high speeds, versus the usual configuration which is dubbed Z-mode.

“We can not generate these downforce ranges with the X-mode and Z-mode, it’s unimaginable,” Isola defined. “So, we have now to know what the most effective compromise for testing is and once we attempt to correlate the information from simulations with information collected on monitor. Step one is to outline the profile and development. From the take a look at we had with Aston Martin we have now a superb place to begin, I’d say. Compound improvement is the second step.

Mario Isola, Racing Supervisor, Pirelli Motorsport

Photograph by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Photographs

“We all know that it’s a problem, as a result of in any case groups don’t need to lose any efficiency in comparison with the present vehicles, and the tyres are smaller, with decrease loading capability and so forth. We’re additionally once more testing new supplies and new concepts with a purpose to have a tyre that isn’t heavier however nonetheless capable of maintain the load and to maintain the identical efficiency that the present tyres have.”

It’s not the primary time Pirelli has been chasing a transferring goal with one hand tied behind its again. However Isola identified the problem for 2026 was maybe barely simpler than in 2017, when F1 moved to larger and wider vehicles with far more downforce, which on the time was unimaginable to duplicate with a mule automotive. F1’s transfer to ground-effect based mostly vehicles for 2022 was additionally a difficult proposition.

“This can be a very related scenario to what we had for 2017 and 2022 once we needed to develop an entire new tyre for a whole new automotive, so it is not one thing new to us,” Isola mentioned in an earlier roundtable.

“In 2016 it was tremendous tough as a result of it was anticipated to have vehicles with a lot increased downforce and the efficiency was 5 or 6 seconds faster than the earlier yr, so it was unimaginable to duplicate this sort of efficiency.

“However the best way you obtain the load with the present vehicles is totally completely different in comparison with the brand new one, for instance. And on the straights, we have now a number of load now, whereas in 2026 at excessive pace we must always have much less load. So, the comparability just isn’t the identical.”

Images from Pirelli Barcelona testing