“I’m expecting most of the races will be one stop”– Pirelli claims most of races in 2022 will be one pitstop races; F1 will lose strategic bend

With the new regulations and 18-inch tyres for the 2022 F1 season, Pirelli claims there will be less tyre degradation, hence fewer pitstops.

Pirelli will be bringing in 18-inch tyres for 2022, along with the car formed with the new regulations. Thus, the tyres will behave differently in 2022 in comparison with 2021.

Pirelli boss Mario Isola in his claim, has told that most of the races in 2022 will not see more than one pitstop. Thus, we may see a decline in F1 strategies.

“We are expecting a performance that is in line with the current tyres, but the car is different, the downforce is different and maybe we will have a small difference in performance,” Isola said in an interview with Tire Technology International.

“I’m expecting most of the races will be one stop, simply because if you have less degradation there is no reason to have more than one stop,” he said but continued to say he doesn’t view this as a negative. “If we have really close racing and we have action on track, who cares about the pit stops?”

Also read: New 18-inch Pirelli tyres are expected to make the F1 cars faster by the end of 2022

Pirelli faces the challenge of not using 2022 cars

Most of the tyre testing has been done with the cars from 2018 or 2019. Therefore, there is no data of the new size tyres with the cars for the next year, and Isola sees it as a problem.

That’s a wrap for the 2021 #F1 track action!

The @ymcofficial test came to an end, today with Sebastian putting in 134 laps on the 18″ @pirellisport tyres.

Tuesday saw @lance_stroll complete 143 laps on the same tyres, with @NickYelloly racking up 118 laps on the 13″ tyres.

— Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team (@AstonMartinF1) December 15, 2021

“Every year is the same. We never have the possibility to test something on the final version of the car,” he explained. “We always use cars that are not what we are going to use the following season, simply because they are not available, so it’s part of the challenge.”

“With a bigger diameter wheel, they had to trim the floor in the back and adjust the suspension. The teams had to work around the car in order to fit the new tyres and adjust the ride height.”

Also read: Sebastian Vettel gives honest review of 18-inch Pirelli tyres after recent test

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

Read More