Isola: Pirelli heading into the "unknown" this weekend

Mario Isola, head of Pirelli motorsport claims the return of the German Grand Prix means his tyre team are heading into the unknown. Isola is unsure how tyre performance will be after a year of absence in Germany.

It's the first time the current compounds will visit the Hockenheimring. They've selected the ultra-soft, soft and medium rubbers.

Ahead of the weekend, he said in an interview on racefans: "Germany is a bit of an unknown quantity."

"In the meantime [since Germany 2016], a lot has changed on the cars as well, of course, the tyre range, while the Hockenheimring itself is substantially unaltered.
Once again, we’ve decided to incorporate a step in the tyres that we’ve nominated in order to provide a roughly equal performance gap between the chosen compounds."

The tread depth was reduced for the races in Spain, France and Britain, but will return to normal this weekend. In Austria, most cars had serious cases of blistering with drivers labelling their cars with an undriveable tag.

Isola went on to confirm practice sessions will be very important for teams to work out a tyre strategy for the race.

"The data collected in free practice will be especially important as teams re-acquaint themselves with the circuit. Also, work out how best to use the tyre nomination to their advantage."