Pirelli Preparing for GP2 at Hockenheim Following ‘Pleasing’ Silverstone Round

The fourth round of the inaugural GP3 series, run on the revised Silverstone track layout, gave Pirelli’s hard compound tyres a chance to show drivers their performance characteristics. Pirelli notes the new hard compound Pirelli PZero 13-inch tyres proved to be “both fast and reliable at Silverstone despite a wide variety of weather conditions that accurately reflected the vagaries of the British climate.”

Saturday’s race was held in dry and warm conditions, with temperatures in the region of 30 degrees Celsius. Esteban Gutierrez dominated the feature race by taking pole position for the second consecutive time and sealing his third win of the season by 3.6 seconds from Rio Haryanto and Nico Muller. On Sunday the weather was cloudy and much cooler with temperatures of about 18 degrees Celsius, increasing the time it took to get the hard compound Pirelli tyres up to ideal operating temperature. Daniel Morad took his first GP3 victory, while Mirko Bortolotti and Gutierrez battled for the remaining podium places.

“We’re very pleased with the debut of our hard compound PZero GP3 tyre at Silverstone, particularly because it performed consistently within a very wide range of conditions,” commented Pirelli’s racing manager Mario Isola. “We were privileged to witness some of the best racing we have seen all year, with the battle between Mirko and Esteban forming a special highlight. Interestingly there was a lot of carbon fibre debris on the track this year, which meant that we saw a number of tyres that had suffered deep cuts to the tread pattern. Despite this, the tyres performed perfectly: underlining the reliability as well as the performance of our PZero rubber.”

At the halfway point of the season Gutierrez leads the championship with 51 points while his ART team mate Alexander Rossi is back up to second on 25 points. The ART squad also leads the teams’ championship. Pirelli is now gearing up for round five of the series, to be held at the Hockenheim circuit in Germany on July 24 and 25. For this race, Pirelli and the championship organisers have opted for the medium-compound tyre that made its debut at the start of the season in Barcelona and Istanbul Park. This tyre, says the Italian tyre maker, has been chosen because of its proven adaptability, giving drivers both power and control within a wide range of circumstances.

“We chose the medium-compound tyre for Hockenheim, which performed very well in Barcelona and Istanbul, precisely for its flexibility and adaptability: which will be a key to getting the most out of Hockenheim,” said Isola. “Like all the tracks, Hockenheim is new to us this year, and of course the experience we accumulate in GP3 will be extremely useful to us in the future as we prepare for GP2 and Formula One as well. We saw a very entertaining race at Silverstone on Sunday and we are pleased that our tyres can help the GP3 drivers to show the very best of themselves in front of an appreciative and important audience.”

This year Pirelli serves as exclusive tyre supplier to GP2 and GP3, and next year its adds the prized Formula One feather to its cap. In this way, comments the tyre maker, future generations of drivers will benefit from a Pirelli-backed ladder of talent designed to take them all the way to the very top of the sport.