Pirelli announce tyre choices

Teams will be able to make use of the hard and soft compound Pirelli tyres at the upcoming British GP at Silverstone

Despite criticism from Ferrari after the Spanish Grand Prix where the hard compound tyres were used for the first time, the Italian manufacturer confirmed they will be sticking with the hard compound tyres in Britain.

Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery insists that hard compounds remain the best choice for the Silverstone track.

"There has been a lot of comment in the last few weeks about the choice for Silverstone," explained Hembery.

"Silverstone is one of the hard circuits in the season, it has a very aggressive surface, it has an unknown factor because the surface has been changed due to the new building work, and in terms of the tyre maker's point of view it is probably one of the hardest circuits that we face during the year - together with Istanbul, Malaysia and going forward something like Spa and Monza for the high speeds and then Suzuka.

"Also, being in England, it's very variable in terms of weather. This week they were having 30C, today I believe it's down to about 15C. So again, from a tyre maker's point of view, making a tyre work in that wide variety of conditions is a big challenge, hence the reason that we felt also offering the soft compound would allow us to operate in cooler conditions."

While Ferrari were unhappy with the hard compound tyres in Barcelona, McLaren and Red Bull adapted to them without any trouble. Despite the disparity, Hembery categorically denied suggestions that company would create tyres to favour one team over another.

"The teams have a difference of opinion," he said.

"We have asked their advice but clearly we don't want to favour or penalise one over the other. We have to take a look at the whole field.

"We have 12 teams we look at and feel that we are going to make the right choice for them, and also the right choice for us of course. Our main concern is to make sure that we don't penalise any team. Some people have decided that from Barcelona the hard tyre favours those with high downforce, so we have to be careful that the strategy based on hard tyres is not going to penalise any particular team.

"Equally we don't want to be in the situation where we have five pitstops, so it is a balance we have to find."

Hembery confirmed that medium and soft compounds will be used at the German Grand Prix while softs and super-softs would come into play at the Hungarian GP.

Source: Planet-F1