Pirelli were delighted with the progress made at this week’s two-day tyre test in the Abu Dhabi, where all 12 Formula One teams got their first taste of the Italian company’s rubber ahead of their return to the sport as sole tyre supplier next season."We've passed our first test with full marks,” said Paul Hembery, Pirelli's motorsport director. “All the teams have done plenty of laps and everyone has worked very hard. On Monday, we begin to analyse the data collected over the last two days.
“The comments from the drivers are very encouraging: they especially enjoyed the performance of our front tyre, which is an area that we have worked on considerably. This was one of our objectives, and I'm delighted that we have hit our target.”
Over the two days at Yas Marina, the teams racked up nearly 11,000 kilometres - more than Pirelli had accumulated in three months of private testing using a Toyota TF109 with Nick Heidfeld, Romain Grosjean and Pedro de la Rosa at the wheel.
“Throughout these two days we've tried out the medium and soft compound tyres and we've had good results from both of them, particularly in terms of wear rate,” added Hembery.
Pirelli’s next private test, to fine tune the tyres, will take place in Bahrain on December 12-16. There will then be another private session in Europe during January, before all the teams reconvene at the beginning of February for the first official 2011 test with the finalised Pirelli compounds.
