Following a ‘lack of overtaking’ at the Monaco Grand Prix, the Pirelli hierarchies came under fire for their ‘peaky’ tires and their short operating windows. After the race, several drivers, including Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, complained about the tires being ‘too hard’.
However, Mario Isola, Pirelli’s Motorsport director, has recently revealed the tire manufacturer’s plans to address these issues in the 2025 F1 season.
Pirelli developing new, extra-soft C6 tires for 2025 F1 season
Pirelli, the sole tire distributor of Formula 1, has revealed that it will introduce a new, extra-soft tire for the 2025 season. This new development, termed as ‘C6 compound’, is a softer tire option. It is specifically designed for the growing number of street circuits on the F1 calendar- making way for more overtaking and ‘spicing’ up the races.
In a conversation with The Times, Pirelli’s Motorsport director, Mario Isola, confirmed the company’s plans to launch the C6 by 2025. He revealed that it is a strategic move based on anticipated needs due to changes in the racing calendar.
“We have very promising compounds to reduce overheating for 2025. The idea is to also introduce a new C6 compound, a softer one, because in the calendar we have more and more street circuits and we need softer compounds.”
Currently, the tire supplier offers five slick compounds. These perform well only for short periods, either being too cold or hot and degrading quickly. Explaining this, Isola admitted on adding the ‘softer’ C6 to Pirelli’s existing tire range.
“The real problem is to find the right trade-off between overheating and degradation, because we need to keep degradation but reduce overheating. And that’s not always easy because the two elements are connected.”
Earlier last week, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz tested Pirelli’s C6 Le Castellet’s Circuit Paul Ricard in France. Reflecting on this, he confirmed the tire’s construction ahead of a possible launch in 2025.
“We tested one [C6] in Paul Ricard a couple of days ago. It’s the first attempt but the idea is to go in this direction probably to [have] six compounds next year. That was our idea, considering the calendar and considering where we go to race.”
In the interview, Isola denied speculations that it was the teams’ request to introduce an even softer compound. He explained this, by adding:
“The target is that we have to encourage a mix between one and two-stop strategy. We made the proposal to go a bit softer because the request [from teams] was to reduce overheating.The risk is that if you reduce the overheating they change [tyres] less because obviously they can run more laps without high degradation. If we go in this direction, then we need to have softer compounds in the range.”
As the works continues, Pirelli intends to possibly approve up to six different compounds for the coming 2025 season. However, real-race data from the initial Grand Prixes should offer important feedback for more improvement.
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