Before the 2015 Formula One World Championship kicked off in Australia and before pre-season testing even, Pirelli said that this year’s F1 cars could break lap records throughout the season. Now following the Australian Grand Prix, the sport’s sole tyre supplier has reiterated this statement and now has some data to demonstrate the increase in pace of the new cars.
As a matter of fact, some cars this year lapped the Albert Park street circuit two seconds faster than they did in 2014 largely due to the new rear tyre construction. The pace-setting and race-winning Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton was actually 1.5 seconds faster around the circuit than last year’s car with a best time in the race of 1:30.945.
Discussing these figures, Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery said “These figures underline what we expected to see following pre-season testing: a significant reduction in lap times, with cars that will only get faster as the year goes on.
“We could even see some lap records on certain circuits. With this in mind, we have introduced evolutions to the rear structure of all our 2015 tyres this year, in order to give them greater capability in handling the extreme demands placed on them.”
