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Pirelli confident it's on top of tyre failures

ESPN Staff
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Pirelli have introduced a new bonding process to eliminate the risk of delaminations © Sutton Images
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Pirelli will debut tyres made with a new bonding process at the British Grand Prix, designed to eliminate the risk of delamination while not having an effect on the performance of the tyre.

Pirelli had planned to bring a new construction of rear tyre with a Kevlar belt to this weekend's race at Silverstone, but could not get unanimous agreement from the teams. Instead it has stuck with a steel belt but introduced a new bonding process to prevent the tread coming away from the belt.

"Silverstone, with its very high average speeds and flowing series of corners, presents an extreme contrast to Canada three weeks ago - which was much more stop and start," Pirelli boss Paul Hembery said. "Like Canada, it's a circuit that takes a lot out of the tyres, but for very different reasons. We've brought the two hardest compounds to the British Grand Prix because of that, with a new bonding process connecting the tread to the steel belt, which is designed to eliminate the isolated delamination issues to reach a unanimous agreement about this: however, we do still have that possibility on stand-by should it be required in future.

Pirelli will also bring a prototype super-hard compound to Silverstone for use in the first two practice sessions. The initiative was first seen at the Spanish Grand Prix and at Silverstone each driver will have two sets of extra tyres to use during the two Friday sessions.

"During free practice at Silverstone we will have the same prototype hard tyre available that we tried out on Friday in Spain, aimed at even greater durability than our current hard," Hembery added. "This is in order to give the teams the chance to test this new compound on a different track to collect more data."

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