James Allen talks about tyres

James Allen, far better suited to life away from the microphone, gives us a great insight into the new Pirelli tyres on his website. If you’ve been following the pre-season testing so far you’ll know the new Pirelli tyres wear much quicker than the Bridgestone tyres that have been used in previous years.

Indeed, the Bridgestones were almost too good, too reliable. A wonderful trait for the marketers at Bridgestone, but not so great for the spectacle of Formula One.

Well, that’s all about to change. Based on current information we can expect large discrepancies in lap times on the Pirellis for each driver and this looks like being further amplified between the soft and hard compound tyres.

So, while the lack of refuelling and very reliable tyre performance made pit stop strategy quite predictable in 2010, we can probably expect times of total chaos in pit lane this year. According to Allen we could see as many four tyre stops per race, such is the drop off in lap times as the tyres wear.

Check out Allen’s website via the link below for the skinny.

[Source: JamesAllenonF1 | Pic: Pirelli | Thanks to Sean for the tip]