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Pirelli plans 'super hard' tyres for Spain

The new compound will last three to four laps longer than the current hard tyres © Sutton Images

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• Pirelli to use new hard tyre in Spain
  

• Drivers:
• Lucas di Grassi

Pirelli is planning to race a new 'super hard' tyre compound at the Spanish Grand Prix in two weeks time as long as it can test it properly during Friday practice at this weekend's Turkish Grand Prix.

The 'super hard' tyre has been in the pipeline for some time and was tested during practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix and during Pirelli's private tests. Motorsport director Paul Hembery said it would be used again during Friday practice at Istanbul Park, where the drivers will be given a set to use on top of their usual allocation.

"The new compound is a new hard compound," Hembery said in a Pirelli YouTube video. "The idea is to add three or four laps to the life of the current hard compound with less degradation. We want to introduce that if we can at Barcelona. But it might be the case that we have rain on Friday at Turkey so we won't have the opportunity to test it, so it might be that we have to go to Barcelona again with these same tyres and try to test there. But we will certainly see it at Silverstone, if we can test on Friday at Istanbul then we'll see it at Barcelona."

Pirelli arrives at the Turkish Grand Prix fresh from a private two-day test at Barcelona earlier this week when ex-Virgin driver Lucas di Grassi made his debut in the Italian firm's Toyota-based development car. The Brazilian, who is still hoping to return to F1 in 2012, said it had been a very useful opportunity.

"A reserve driver in Formula One will not do 500 kilometres in a whole season and I did over a thousand in two days," he told Globo Esporte. "I'm satisfied because we ran through the schedule and gathered important information."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.