Pirelli has promised Formula 1 fans that it will take an aggressive approach to its tire choice for next season in a bid to help improve the show.
With the Italian tire manufacturer having taken on board the lessons from this year's Canadian Grand Prix, which was turned into a great spectacle because of rubber that was difficult to manage, Pirelli says that careful thought will now be made about how best to approach 2011. Rather than simply adopting a conservative approach to tire choice, Pirelli has made it clear that it wants to push the tires as much as it can to ensure the racing is as good as possible.
Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery told AUTOSPORT, "We are going to try and be aggressive – provide one 'safe' option and then an aggressive one to try and create the show. That is something that the promoter would definitely like to see, and Bernie [Ecclestone] is keen for that.
"The fans, I am sure, are keen for that, and I have to say that the comments from the teams after Canada were that they actually enjoyed it. The team principals I have spoken to said that that was good fun. It might not have produced the result they all wanted, but it added to the strategy of the event."
Hembery believes that Pirelli has a chance to really shake up the impact that tires can have on the racing - as he suggests F1 should be as on the knife-edge in terms of tire management as MotoGP is.
"We want to participate with the sport and make the show, and Canada was a good example of what you can do if you provide an extreme solution," he said. "From a tire maker's point of view, you wonder if the public perceive that as a bad tire, but in the end that is about communication. There are other forms of motorsport, like motorcycle racing, where the tire is always at the limit. And if you take someone like Valentino Rossi, his great success over the years was down to his maintenance of the tire performance until the end of the race. Then he does his showboat lap at the end where he just destroys everyone.
"So, it is a skill that we used to talk about in motorsport all over the place, of drivers conserving their tires, managing their tires, and maybe over the years we have all developed technologies that means they can go flat out for much longer - and that skill has maybe been lost along the way.
"As long as we communicate it well, the drivers understand it and don't start talking about bad tires – and understand that it is part of the show – then it will be fine. I think all of them after Canada will probably agree they had more fun in that scenario than they probably would have done in a processional race. Certainly from a fans' point of view it was fantastic."