Pirelli ultrasoft to make F1 debut in Canada

The all new Pirelli ultra-soft Formula 1 tyre will make its first appearance at this year's Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, in June.

The Italian tyre manufacturer said in a press release:

Pirelli will bring the following three compounds to the seventh round of the 2016 Formula One season in Canada (June 10 – 12):

These are the mandatory tyres to be available for the race:

Each driver must have both these sets available for the race, and must use at least one of them.

These are the tyres assigned for Q3 in qualifying:

Following on from the 2016 regulations, each driver must save for Q3 one set of the softest of the three nominated compounds. This set will be given back to Pirelli after Q3 for those who qualify in the top 10, but the remaining drivers will keep it for the race – as is the case currently.

The teams are free to choose the remaining sets; making up 13 sets in total for the weekend.

The new 2016 tyre regulations mean that tyre choices for long-haul events have to be made 14 weeks in advance, whereas for European races the deadline is eight weeks in advance.

Meanwhile in the aftermath of the frist F1 preseason test in Spain last week, Paul Hembery, Pirelli Motorsport Director said,“There are not too many conclusions you can read into the first test of the season, as teams are all trying different things with different specifications of car, making it quite hard to interpret from the outside the characteristics of each tyre."

"However, from the inside, all the data we have seen so far indicates that the overall tyre performance is about where we expected it to be, during both longer and shorter runs."

"Our biggest news was the debut of P Zero Purple ultrasoft tyre, which set the fastest time of the test and provided the extra performance we had aimed for, even though Barcelona is not the type of circuit it is particularly suited to," added Hembery.