“This is what happens to an F1 tyre”– How F1 teams make used F1 tyres ready for next session and where do they go?

What happens to the F1 tyres after every session as the teams are allowed to have a limited set of tyres for every Grand Prix week.

Tyre management is a hectic job. With an intelligent strategy, tyres can make your race weekend worth it. But a mistake can also cost you your whole race.

Every team is granted a limited set of tyres, with which they have to manage their whole weekend. Thus, at times, some of these tyres are repeated during the sessions and at times in the race.

So, how it is done? The team has a crew to deal with the tyres once they are used. And they are responsible for making it ready for the next session.

Also read: F1 tyres 2021 will cut more downforce; Pirelli welcomes the move

How do teams make F1 tyres ready for the next session

The first thing that the crew does with the used tyres, which need to be used again, is that they check the wear and damage check. It is followed by weighing those tyres.

Then the new nuts replace the old ones.  Later, they are properly washed. They are all arranged together and then sent back to Pirelli with this.

From there on, Pirelli stored the tyres, and they returned to the teams when the next session is about to get started. This thing is repeated after every session, and it’s a seamless exchange between the 10 teams and Pirelli.

Why did Pirelli introduce 18-inch tyres?

Going into the 2022 season, Pirelli introduced new 18-inch tyres, which are obviously heavier for teams to manage. But why does the tyre manufacturer company do it?

The simple answer is to give better performance, as these tyres would generate less wear. Hence, the cars can do longer laps with the exact tyre without puncturing.

“Tires next year will be more consistent,” Mario Isola, Pirelli motorsport head, said. “We tried to design a new family of compounds with a different concept, less overheating, and a wider working range.”

“The potential risk is that we have the majority of the races on one stop because of the characteristics of the tire,” he added. Isola further claims that tyres performing for longer laps may reduce the pitstops and reduce the burden of tyre strategy, which according to him, is not necessarily wrong.

“This doesn’t mean that races will be boring or worse because of that,” Isola said. “If we have action on track and drivers that are pushing and they overtake each other, that is good for the show.”

“So this is exactly what we want to see. It is not that two-stop or one-stop is making the race better or worse.”

Also read: F1 Tyres 2020: Pirelli under pressure to launch a thorough investigation after a climactic British Grand Prix