Pirelli: Pace evolution in 2015 is going to be dramatic

At the start of the first season of the V6 turbo era Formula 1 cars were scarcely faster than GP2 cars, but a season down the line and the turbo cars are exceeding the pace of their predecessors powered by normally aspirated V10 engines and Pirelli are expecting even faster cars in 2015.

Pirelli F1 chief Paul Hembery reflected on the 2014 season, "Even if we took the same tyre choices everywhere, what was conservative might start becoming aggressive [in 2015] because the pace evolution for 2015 is going to be pretty dramatic."

"We saw big improvements towards the end of the season and that's without them being able to get anywhere near the powertrain in the way they'd like to. We can expect quite a big jump again in performance, and if we are talking a second to two seconds a lap speed improvement then that dramatically changes the way the tyres are used, so we have to be wary of that and follow that," cautioned Hembery.

"The racing [in 2014] was by and large very good. It was very interesting with a lot of battles and a lot of in-team battles - we haven't seen a lot of that in recent years with team-mates having battles, there tends to be a dominant factor in most teams but we have seen less of that and a lot of very strong battles between team-mates," recalled the Pirelli motorsport director.

"If you take away the Mercedes dominance, it has been pretty tight with the group behind and the racing has been good. Considering what we thought coming into the season, that it might not be that exciting with reliability, you've got to say that the teams and engine manufacturers have done a good job with such a dramatic change in regulations to not have such dramatic problems," concluded Hembery.