TYRE ENGINEERING
The last time one team was winning championship after championship – Ferrari in the early 2000s – Formula 1 was in the grip of a tyre war and one of the key pillars of Ferrari’s dominance was its close relationship with its tyre supplier, Bridgestone. Now just one company supplies the whole grid and its products must be suitable for all – but that doesn’t mean it leaves the teams to their own devices.
“We have a lot of systems in place to guarantee equal treatment for the teams,” says Pirelli’s racing manager, Mario Isola. “Not only the same product, but also the same level of service. Our job is to give them as much information as we can – but the same information – and all the tools to set up their cars to extract the maximum performance from the tyres.
“We assign an engineer to each team
