Pirelli has debuted the C6 compound at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in Imola last weekend (May 18) as the Formula 1 season moved into its European stages. This marked the first time that drivers had run the C6 on this season’s cars.
Homologated for use at tracks that stress the tires the least, Pirelli said ahead of the race that the C6 “could provide even more grip over a flying lap” and that data gathered in Imola, Monaco and Montreal will be used by the Pirelli engineers to evaluate the tire for other Grand Prix.
Mario Isola, director of motorsport Pirelli, said after the race, “An exciting incident-packed race brought a very busy weekend to a close, which for us featured the outright debut of the new C6 compound. Now, it will be important to analyze all the data from these three days thoroughly, as it should provide useful insights for coming races, especially in terms of tire compound allocation for races in the second half of the season.
“What we can say right now is that the decision to go with a trio of compounds one step softer than last year proved to be the right one. If we look at the first part of the race, as the second was affected by neutralizations, we saw that in a situation where all the drivers were managing their pace in the opening stint, it only required one of them to make an unexpected move – in this case Leclerc pitting early on lap 10 – to trigger changes in strategy. Some chose to extend the first stint as much as possible, obviously going for a one-stop race, while others realized that the Ferrari driver’s undercut worked very well and were forced to react. In fact, on fresh tires and with a clear track ahead of him, Leclerc made up a lot of places.
“Of course, what happened in the second part of the race makes it hard to know for certain to what extent such an early pit stop would have paid off, or if the move would have forced those who did so into switching to a two-stop strategy. It means that, in general, the decision to go with softer tires still opened the door to more choices, both in terms of the number of stops and the length of the stints.”
In related news, Goodyear debuted a slick tire specification for LMP2 teams at the 4 Hours of Le Castellet, the second round of the 2025 European Le Mans Series (ELMS), on May 4. Click here to read the full story
