Final F1 pre-season testing to begin in Barcelona

Having tested last week in colder than expected conditions, Pirelli will expect this week’s trip to Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya to offer Formula One teams a better idea of the combined performance of their 2013 cars on the new P Zeros. Taking place from Thursday to Sunday, the final four-day session will complete the 12 days of practice allowed before the season opening Australian grand prix in March. Paul Hembery, Pirelli’s motorsport director, said that he hoped to “find conditions that are slightly more representative, which will allow the teams to collect more relevant data.”

Each car taking to the track in Barcelona will have access to up to 35 sets of Pirelli tyres, comprising the new P Zero supersoft, soft, medium and hard compounds, and including the Cinturato intermediate and wet tyres if needed. Each team is allowed 100 sets of tyres per car for testing purposes over the course of the entire season. Pirelli will pick 20 of the sets that will be tested per car, while the teams are free to pick 15 more that they would like to try. Any sets of tyres not used at the previous test in Barcelona may be carried forward to this test.

Barcelona has been chosen to host this testing as it provides a wide range of parameters to judge the performance and interaction of car and tyre. Just under 60 per cent of the lap is spent at full throttle, with the cars at top speed for around 16 seconds on the straight. The set-up calls for a medium to high level of downforce, while brake and tyre wear tends to be high: not helped by a track surface that is moderately abrasive.

The data from race simulations during the previous test session at the 4.655-kilometre Montmelo circuit indicates that the objective of two to three pit stops per race, requested by the teams, the governing body and the promoter, is on target. Even though the data collection process was hampered by cold weather, all the initial indications point to this conclusion.

Hembery concluded: “The fact that we’re going back to Barcelona gives them all an excellent known baseline from which to operate. These 2013 tyres are quite different to their predecessors, both in terms of compound and construction, which makes the work that will be carried out over the next few days even more essential.

“At this stage of testing it is always difficult for the teams and drivers to know what to expect from the first race as conditions are not always representative. Past experience from the last two years shows a big reduction in tyre degradation over the course of the season: roughly half the degradation seen in winter testing. This year, we think that degradation will be higher than it was in 2012, and we estimate a degradation rate of around 0.15 to 0.18 seconds per lap in race conditions for the hard compound in Barcelona.”

Related news:

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• Second F1 test underway in Barcelona