Pirelli has rebuffed the suggestion by Lewis Hamilton that this seasons Pirelli’s are the ‘peakiest’ he’s seen in the history of the sport.
After the Miami GP last month Hamilton said that the 2024 tyres had the smallest operating window he’d seen in his career.
But the Italian manufacturer said the competitiveness of the F1 field is the main reason for the added exposure.
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Speaking to motosport.com Hamilton said:
“You look back in the day when you had a much bigger working window to work with.
“Then you can just optimise the balance and then just have good grip throughout the whole lap. This is definitely my least favourite.”
The Mercedes struggled yet again in Miami with Hamilton finishing 6th. His teammate, George Russell, could do no better coming home in 8th.
Pirelli’s F1 chief engineer Simone Berra however said the competitiveness of the field was to blame.
In the past the field may be spread by seconds. It can now be spread by tenths when F1 goes to the shorter circuits.
“Every tyre has a peak at some point and the operating window is always just a definition. We take a certain percentage of grip loss to define the window,” said Berra.
“I think even in the past it was the same. But probably it was less critical because the level of detail that we have at the moment is quite significant,”
“That’s why now everything is highlighted and important. In the past, 15-20 years ago, you had cars or drivers even divided by half a second,”
What is peak grip?
Berra also highlighted the impact different compounds on race weekends can have.
“We know very well that especially C4, and in some cases obviously with high temperature the C5, there can be a peaky performance,” he said.
“Some teams are less able compared to others to extract the peak of performance.”
Pirelli explained recently how it defines the working range of the tyre to be the temperature area that is within 3% of the peak grip possible.
This means those teams who can keep their tyres operating at peak performance for longer will do better.
Other teams have struggled with the limited tyre ranges so far this season.
Charles Leclerc’s said his qualifying issues in Japan were due to his inability to put the tyres in the right window.
Pirelli will need to ensure the tyres are suitable for cars to race if fans are going to get an exciting season.