The Latest Breaking News from Mario Isola

The topic was also a key element of the most recent F1 tyre tender process launched by the FIA, and which covered the 2025-'28 seasons.

As part of an effort to make F1 cars smaller and lighter, Pirelli agreed to reduce the front tyre width by 25mm and the rear tyre width by 30mm. The tyres themselves will also become smaller in diameter, going from the current 720mm diameter to 705-710mm, although F1 will still…

The company not only has to hone its tyres for cars that each year generate more load and produce faster lap times, but it also has to prepare for and adapt to any upcoming rule changes.

If a driver can extract just one more tenth out of their tyres over a single qualifying lap, that can be the difference between getting knocked out in Q1 or Q2 or making it all the way through to the final shoot out.

The recent Chinese and Japanese Grands Prix highlighted how the variability produced by a pretty much nailed-on two-stopper helps trigger plenty of overtaking and action.

Teams all too frequently bin off one of the choices – either because the soft is too aggressive, the medium falls into no-man's land, or the hard is too conservative – but this weekend's race in Japan has left what Pirelli's head of car racing Mario Isola says is a…

As F1 teams have fully understood the new ground-effect regulations, they have found ways to increase the downforce and better manipulate outwash to improve their performance.

The smaller rim size was under consideration largely as part of ongoing efforts by the FIA to reduce the overall weight of the 2026 cars.

The year also saw an ultimately aborted effort to create no-blanket slicks for 2024, the successful introduction of a full wet that did work without blankets, a new construction introduced at the British GP to deal with ever-increasing downforce, and an end-of-season request from the F1 Commission to tackle the…