Pirelli "satisfied" with tyres in Abu Dhabi as decade-old track record is broken

After the track record at the Yas Marina Circuit was finally broken after a decade, Pirelli head of racing Mario Isola was left pleased with how the tyres behaved during Sunday's Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton bagged a rare Grand Slam.

Hamilton got pole position, set the fastest lap during the race (breaking the lap record) and led all 55 laps of the Grand Prix - a Grand Slam.

The old track record was Sebastian Vettel's, who set a 1:40.279 at the inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2009. Hamilton broke that record by almost a full second this season with a 1:39.283.

This pleased Isola, who was also happy overall with the way the tyres behaved in the tricky conditions at the Yas Marina Circuit.

“From a tyre point of view, with the three softest compounds in our range, we are satisfied with the overall performance here,” the Italian said after the race.

"We saw some long stints and low degradation, but also plenty of tactical variation and raw speed, with the decade-old race lap record finally broken on quite old hard tyres," he referenced to Hamilton's new record, which he set on the second-to-last lap on the hard C3 compound.

“This underlines the constant increase in performance we have seen in Formula 1 this year, which we have to bear in mind for the future.”

Pirelli will have a lot of testing to do on the 2020 compound in the coming days, meaning the work doesn't stop here for Isola, who even revealed the new 18-inch tyres for 2021 will get another run-out during post-season testing.

“On Tuesday and Wednesday all the teams will try out a range of 2020 tyres, with the opportunity to compare them to the current 2019 tyres.

“After that, we’ll also be testing the 18-inch tyre for 2021 in the last of our private tests this year."