Pirelli confirm new naming convention from 2019 season

The F1 naming convention for tyres has been deemed a little too confusing for the average fan and thus FIA and the Liberty Media have decided to simplify the naming convention, so as to attract more people to the sport and not alienate those who have just started watching it.

Under this system, the hardest compound for that particular race weekend would be referred to as hard, the second hardest compound as medium and the third hardest compound as soft.(no matter what they actually are)

While this system has already been put into place for the 2020-23 tyre tender, Pirelli have actually gone onto execute this a little quicker, and Mario Isola has confirmed that the new naming convention would be making its debut in 2019.

He was quizzed about if the naming convention could actually kick in in 2019, to which Isola replied with an affirmative.

“I can confirm that I made all the investigation within the company to understand if it is feasible, because obviously there is an implication with the production, logistics, how we manage the tyres, and marketing as well.

“I made an investigation with all the departments to make sure we’re not doing something wrong. I confirmed that it’s feasible.

“Obviously we need to make some work around it. The three names are clear – hard, medium and soft – but the three colours are still under discussion.

“It was a request coming from F1 and the FIA, and we made the necessary changes in order to achieve that for 2019.

“The next step is to define the colours, and to announce officially that we are going in that direction.” he said as quoted by Autosport.com.

The real compound names will also be revealed for those fans who want to indulge in the technical aspect of the sport.

“The other open points are that we need to give a name to the compounds to give you the information on which are the real compounds that we are using, and how we manage the tests,” said Isola.

“At the tests all the compounds are available, because we need to understand how to paint the sidewalls at the test.

“During the pre-season test I can imagine that there will be some confusion! But hopefully we can fix it with races, where we have the three compounds.

“It is a complete change of approach compared to the past.” he added.

Isola also spoke about how the teams already have a different nomenclature(a more simplified one) for every weekend and hopes that the new FIA approved nomenclature can become part of their race weekend conversations.

“They are still talking about prime, option and qualifying [tyres], so it’s something that’s coming probably from 15 years ago!” said Isola.

“We cannot change this, but now we have hard, medium and soft, maybe they can use these names.” he concluded.