F1 News
Ferrari struggling with 2019 tyres
- Bevan Youl
Ferrari’s team principal Mattia Binotto has said that they are finding it difficult to warm up the tyres this year in comparison to 2018.
Pirelli reduced the thickness of the tread across all of its compound of tyres from 2018 for 2019, with the aim of preventing blistering of the rubber.
Binotto admitted that the team were capable of warming up the tyres last year, but this season it is the opposite.
"The main difference is that last year we had very good warm up with the tyres and we were all focused and concentrating on cooling the tyres as much as we could, to keep them working because the lower the temperature was the better the grip was,” Binotto said at the Monaco Grand Prix (quoted by Autosport).
"The tyres of this season are quite different in this respect.
"Warm-up is a lot more difficult and in order to achieve what we may call the window, the temperature target of when you have the best grip from the tyres itself, you need to heat up the tyres."
The Italian also remarked on how it is not just a struggle with the tyres being an issue for performance, but also potentially to do with the car not having the right downforce.
"You can achieve [heat in the tyres] through braking temperatures and cooling the rims, but also it is downforce no doubt," he added.
"The downforce has an absolute value, but it is also how you may balance the downforce at high speed to low speed.
"It may be as well how you may even target your aero development efficiency versus maximum downforce itself.
"I think we have a car that is quite efficient, as you can see on the straights, but it doesn't mean we have the car that has the highest downforce in the pitlane."