Pirelli data shows dramatic gains made by McLaren  – The new breed of Formula One cars introduced in 2022 have begun to approach a point of convergence as Red Bull Racing hit a development ceiling following their uber dominant 2023. The world champions started the year well winning seven of the first ten races before the fateful Austrian Grand Prix.

There McLaren looked to have the quicker car during the weekend but Max Verstappen found a way to lead Norris in the race and defended as though his life depended upon it. Their coming together was inevitable and it was Lando who was forced to retire his car, while Verstappen limped home in fifth place.

This was the start of a remarkable run of ten Grand Prix weekends which would see six drivers on top of the podium and none of them in Red Bull colours. The in season progress the teams have made are quite remarkable and the latest data from Pirelli tells its own tale.

 

 

 

The challenge for Pirelli

Each year since the ground effect regulations were introduced the lap times have tumbled across all the locations. The average dry pole position time has fallen by eight tenths of a second from 2023 to 2024 and the average lap time in the race has dropped by six tenths.

Pole position at the 2023 USGP was 1:34.713 but come this year it was slashed to 1:32.330, a whopping 2.383 seconds. This of course is a headache for F1’s tyre provider Pirelli as was evidenced by their ‘exploding’ tyres back in 2013.

Then in their third year since taking over from Bridgestone, Pirelli agreed to the FIA brief to build tyres which degraded more quickly than previously. The level of degradation improved the entertainment factor dramatically, with the racing a marked departure from previous years. Strategy now became key, with the fastest tyres significantly quicker than the next compound, but faster at degrading. Starting a race on soft tyres allowed a driver to pull away, but lose the lead once the tyres were past their peak.

The big regulation change for 2022 gave Pirelli some respite as around 50% of the downforce was stripped from the top side of the car. This was replaced by ground effect under the floor of the cars but ass the teams struggled to understand the new aerodynamic concept, the down force growth was not as great as it was to become the following season.

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November tyre test the baseline for next year

The Pirelli test in November has provided the Italian company with fresh simulations as they attempt to anticipate the additional loads they will face in 2025.

“We expect some improvement, but we need to understand from the data,” says Simone Berra, chief engineer at Pirelli. “Next year, we expect the increase in performance will be much lower and we will be in a more stable situation.

“But who knows, because the teams will find a way to find performance. Simulations are not the Bible so it can be different next year. A step is expected.

“We will also have new compounds and structures, so a proper back-to-back [comparison] will not be so easy. But we expect some improvement.”

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McLaren data remarkable

In Miami the place where Lando Norris won his maiden Grand Prix, the improvement year on year best time in qualifying was a huge 1.15 seconds for McLaren and Pirelli must beware that even though 2025 will be the fourth year of the current design regulations their calculations cane easily come undone by the engineering developments by the teams. 

Berra admits that the general performance increase over the second half of 2024 has been greater than anticipated.This has driven the teams and drivers to use the tyres in a tactical fashion and evidence of graining in recent weeks suggests Pirelli have been deploying their final trick to prevent exploding tyres – increasing tyre pressure. “We have seen very high loads from two or three teams,” added Bera. “Usually, we have the simulation for the year at the middle and end of the season. Nobody thought to have these kinds of loads.

“[They were] beyond expectation, I would say. It is interesting with how much they are evolving with the cars.

“We thought, at some point, they would reach the maximum level of performance. But there is still some performance to gain. We have seen in the last races, for example Mercedes improved a lot. It is very interesting.”

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Design convergence decreases performance growth

With 2025 being the final year of the current design regulations it should be more difficult for the teams to unlock similar performance gains relative to each other as the car designs converge.

The team boss from the runaway world champions in 2023 repeated the mantra after each win of the season that they would hit a development ceiling in the future. As the rest of the field ironed out their development design flaws, the advantage the Milton Keynes based squad had enjoyed rapidly diminished. Now of course McLaren and Ferrari are ahead of them in the constructors’ title race.

Pirelli didn’t get it completely right in 2023 as the cars were much faster than the previous simulations the tyre manufacturer had suggested. They were forced to introduce a new tyre compound midway through the season at the British Grand Prix.

While this didn’t affect the pecking order established by the, this is something Pirelli never want to do in case its unfair to one of the teams.

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Pressure is the final trick

Yet Bera states Pirelli have too little time to develop and test something which is drastically different from the current rubber line up as their focus will be on the increased power coming from the new engines in 2026.

To control this Pirelli adjust up the minimum pressures the teams must run on the tyres and this is strictly enforced by the FIA with the threat of disqualification as was recently the case for George Russell.

“We don’t want to change construction [during] the season,”says Berra. “We do not really think it’s fair, because we provide one specification that should be the same for the rest of the season. For Silverstone last year, the improvement in terms of fatigue was quite significant. We proposed this to have a better integrity for the tyres. We don’t expect to have something similar for next year, at the moment.

“We need to double check with the loads from the teams on simulation etc. [to determine if] we will stay with the same pressure or have lower pressure. It is very much team dependent on what we do with the pressure. There may be the possibility to increase the pressure towards the end of the season. I would rather prefer not to increase the pressure too much. So would the teams, I think, because you start to generate too much overheating and graining.

“We would like to keep the pressure as low as possible.”

The demands on Pirelli are etched into most F1 folks memory as memories of the 2013 British Grand Prix live long in the mind.

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Russell snubs Verstappen olive branch

Is it political? Is George marking his territory like a loyal dog? The spat between George Russell and Max Verstappen has come to dominate the final Formula One weekend of 2024 in Abu Dhabi.

In short, Max Verstappen was upset with George Russell last time out in Qatar for allegedly pushing the stewards to give the world champion a penalty for driving too slowly in qualifying. The FIA officials did eventually issue the highly unusual one place grid drop penalty for being 18 seconds under his minimum lap time delta.

Verstappen was incensed and on Sunday at the pre-drivers parade assembly was heard to say, “You and your FIA mates, I hope you’re happy with what you’ve done.”  Ted Kravitz of Sky reported “the actual quote was rather ruder than that…”… READ MORE