Vettel suspects Pirelli hasn’t hit 2020 tyre targets

Sebastian Vettel believes Pirelli hasn’t achieved the improvements it wanted with its tyres for the 2020 F1 season, but is willing to try the new rubber again.

Teams will evaluate the tyres in next week’s post-season test at Yas Marina. They previously ran them in practice for the United States Grand Prix but several drivers, including Vettel, have expressed doubts over the tyres.

“It’s probably good to give them another go,” he said. “On the other hand I think the targets that were set out to achieve, probably we didn’t achieve.

“We had some testing: I had a day in Barcelona, we had a cross-check in Austin. I think the feedback wasn’t positive and in the end we tried to obviously make a step forward. So we’ll see what comes out.”

The new tyres are supposed to have a wider working range following complaints from teams over the difficulty they have experienced keeping their 2019 rubber in the ideal temperature window.

Pirelli’s head of F1 and car racing Mario Isola said the test at the Circuit of the Americas was “not representative” for several reasons.

“[It was] not only the weather conditions but also the fact that during the race weekend, obviously, nobody had the time to optimise the set-up of the car.

“The new construction is changing a little bit the balance. And the profile of the tyre is different so they have also to work around the aero package in order to optimise the aero package because if you lose downforce that means the level of grip is lower.”

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