Pirelli to decide tyre allocations for F1 teams in 2022

Back in 2019, each F1 team was allowed to choose which tyre compounds they wished to use in each race weekend, per driver, and would select in advance how many tyre sets of each compound they wanted Pirelli to supply them at a given race.

That gave the teams an advantage in terms of choosing tyres that suited their cars, as each F1 car would behave differently on different tyre compounds based on its design characteristics.

That process, however, was halted in 2020 due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, as Pirelli could not cater to each team's specific wishes in terms of tyre choice as that would put more strain on the tyre supplier's production schedule as manufactures all over the world faced production difficulties due to the repercussions of Covid on supply chains.

Thus Pirelli decided the tyres to be supplied to each team in 2020, and that practice continued in 2021, and - according to Pirelli's Head of F1 and Car Racing Mario Isola - will continue in 2022.

Isola spoke on this subject to F1's official website, and explained why the new practice - Pirelli deciding tyre allocations - continued for 2021 revealing it was the teams who requested it.

He said: "We had to find this solution [of fixed tyre allocation] for the pandemic – to [have] a quicker reaction – but then the teams came back to us saying ‘actually this system is quite good, we want to keep it for the future.’

"It was not our decision at the end to continue with this fixed allocation; the teams told us if they have a fixed allocation and it is the same for everybody – so there is no advantage for one or the other – they can start planning on this fixed allocation.

"Instead of spending time and the resources and people to think about one set more of the mediums or one set less of the soft, they have that allocation, they have to work around this, and so in 2020 they said: ‘We want to continue for 2021.’," Isola explained.

The Italian revealed that with new tyres debuting in 2022, and with the F1 teams having as little as no experience with them, especially as the sport will have radically different 'ground-effect' cars as well, they all decided to leave that task for Pirelli to handle for another season as well, with matters open for 2023.

"In 2021, with a new product for 2022, nobody was confident for deciding the compounds breakdown, and so they wanted to continue," he pointed out.

"I don’t know if in 2023 they want to change but, for the moment, this is the answer," concluded Isola.

Pirelli have celebrated their 150th Anniversary last week on January 28, with the company entering their 12th year as F1's sole tyre supplier in 2022, after returning to the sport in 2011.