Pirelli has unveiled the design of the five compounds fans will struggle to see on the cars during testing in a few weeks.
Gone are the rainbow colors of pink, purple, red, yellow and white, replaced by 5 identical shades of white in a move Pirelli hopes will simplify any confusion.
“They couldn’t be more easy to distinguish!” said Tomás Becker, Head of Confusion at Pirelli.
“We found that 2018’s rainbow colors were simply too difficult to identify”
“But we’ve fixed that, and now each compound has a very similar white line design with minimal differences” Becker said.
“It’s in keeping with our policy of fiddling with the tyres every single year, to make it as confusing as possible for fans”
“I’m colour blind, so this is how the 2018 ones look to me anyway!”
2019 Testing Compounds
- Compound 1, the hardest compound, will be identified by its white Pirelli branding and black lines around the outside.
- The next step up, Compound 2 can be identified by a thin white line around the outside.
- Third in the range, Compound 3 is identified by two thin white lines with a black line around the outside.
- The second softest, Compound 4 is identified by a black and white line around the outside
- Finally, Compound 5, the softest, will be identified by a thicker white line around the outside.
Early signs are promising, but testing hasn’t been without it’s hiccups for the tyre manufacturer.
“Some of the tyres are a little hard to determine, particularly when driving at high or low speeds or standing still” Becker said.
“For example, Compound 2 is hard to distinguish from Compounds 3-5”
“Each compound is made up of a series of “sub compounds”
“For example, Compound 3 is a choice between Sub-compound 3A through 3Z. Each of these have several sub-sub-compounds.”
“Come back in 5 and I’ll draw you a diagram!”
We never did.
