Pirelli Ready for Competition with Future F1 Tyre Suppliers

The last time there were more than 2 tyre manufacturers in F1 was back in 2006 with Bridgestone and Michelin. Now, Italian manufacturer, Pirelli have stated that they are prepared for a potential tyre war in the future. Pirelli has been the sole F1 tyre manufacturer since 2011 after taking over from Bridgestone.

There have been rumours about the sport introducing a new tyre supplier into the fray. Head of motorsport, Mario Isola said that the Italian supplier will be ready to face competition.

“If they decide to come back to this situation as we said in the past, we are ready to face also this new challenge,” Isola said. “It is a new challenge because if you’re a sole supplier you have some targets.

“You supply the same tyres to everybody so you can have a tyre with high degradation, with different targets. If we are in competition with our tyre supplier the target is just performance. It is clear. It’s like for teams. Their target is safety for sure but safety is a target, it’s always there, it’s always a priority but after that it’s just performance.”

Isola believes that the best decision for F1 right now is for it to stick to just one supplier. The sport’s new owners Liberty Media are keen to reduce the amount of expenditure. According to him, introducing a second tyre supplier would go against the work it’s currently doing.

“The direction of Formula 1 is still to have one supplier,” Isola said. “Obviously what is changing quickly but the single supplier is saving money for everybody. If you introduce, again, what they call the ”tyre war” or multiple suppliers you have to consider that in the past it was necessary to have additional test sessions or in the past the teams had a proper tyre test team and obviously this means additional costs. If they want to reduce the cost, this is probably not the right direction.”

Earlier this year, there were whispers in the rumour mill that South Korean manufacturer Hankook, could replace Pirelli by 2020.