A couple of weeks ago, Pirelli announced it was introducing a new soft compound tyre for 2018 and wanted fans to name it. After a vote, the winning name was ‘hypersoft’ (beating extremesoft and megasoft) and it’ll have pink sidewalls.
Today Pirelli revealed its 2018 tyres (which it’s calling the ‘Pirelli rainbow’) and as well as the new hypersoft, there was a surprise addition – the superhard.
That makes for a massive seven different compounds next year – what was that about people wanting to make F1 easier to understand?
Another hard compound may seem weird, given that teams this year have been avoiding the hard tyres like Nico Hulkenberg avoids the podium. However, Pirelli says that next year’s compounds are much softer than they have been in 2017 with the aim of making most races next year two-stoppers.
Pirelli even says that the hypersoft is actually the softest compound it’s ever made for F1 – will that mean a return of the occasional crazy multi-stop races we sometimes saw in 2012 and 2013?
The hard tyre will be blue next year, just like the full wets, which should be confusing in situations where teams go straight from full wets to hards, something that happens multiple times during a race.
Teams will get to try out the new rubber at the tyre test at Yas Marina which happens in the week following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
