Pirelli has revealed its plans for next year's tyre regulations, whereby teams -- and possibly individual drivers -- will get greater choice over which compounds they run.
In an attempt to inject extra excitement into races, Pirelli agreed with Formula One's Strategy Group to allow teams a degree of choice over which compounds they use in order to allow them to tailor strategies more specifically to their cars. Pirelli will introduce a fifth "ultra-soft" compound next year along with the four existing slick compounds of super-soft, soft, medium and hard.
As is the case this season, teams will still receive 13 sets of tyres per weekend, but rather than having two compounds decided by Pirelli and split seven sets to six in favour of the harder "prime" compound, teams will get to choose how many of each compound they want. In order to stop teams making risky or dangerous choices, Pirelli will limit the teams to three compounds from the range per race, but they will then be able to pick how many of each they want.
"The idea is that we define the three compounds and then they can choose inside their 13 sets what they want," Pirelli racing manager Mario Isola said. "But it is not complete freedom. We have the one element of variability, but they are not completely free in order to avoid the strangest of choices."
However, even if the team picks a mixture of three compounds, it will still only have to use two in the race -- as is the case now.
"They can choose three and they are obliged to use two," Isola added. "They cannot race with just one compound, they have to race with more than one, so they can use two or three. They will have the same number of sets, and obviously the regulation is not finalised yet, but the idea is to keep the same system we have now, so they have to return tyres after each practice and so on. It will also give them the opportunity to choose most of their sets and then make their strategies."
Isola is confident the new plan will add a random element early in the season, but admits teams could start to converge on similar choices depending on the demands of the car.
"Obviously with experience they find the same solution and converge on the same solution because it is the best solution. But at the beginning, when you introduce this type of variability, for sure you have different choices.
"If you consider that some cars are more severe on tyres and some cars are easier, they can make different choices depending on how they design the car or how the driver feels with the tyre. It is not only a matter of all going in the same direction, it is also a matter of how to design the car, driving style and so on. It could maintain some variability for the medium term."
Asked if different drivers could make different choices within the same team, Isola added: "This is another detail that is under discussion. In the first draft the idea was to give them complete freedom and then this sort of detail is to be discussed with team managers and so on. In my opinion it is better to leave it free."