Pirelli Formula 1 boss Mario Isola has revealed that nothing should stop the tyre supplier's modified rear construction being used from the British Grand Prix onwards. Each driver had two sets of the prototype rubber, which have been introduced due to the tyre blowouts which caused big accidents for Lance Stroll and Max Verstappen, during Friday's and Saturday's practice sessions at the Austrian GP. Isola said the teams and drivers were pleased with its performance. "I didn’t have any objections, I didn’t have any negative comments, I didn’t collect anything that makes me think there is not good reason to introduce the prototype in Silverstone,” Isola told RacingNews365.com and other select members of the press. “We are going to receive the data tonight, so we want to take a bit of time to analyse the data and collect feedback also tomorrow morning. “But to be honest, I don’t see a reason why we shouldn’t introduce it in Silverstone. The final confirmation will be on Saturday anyway.” The modified rear construction features higher cornering stiffness at high loads, and a higher vertical stiffness. This means it can run at lower pressures than the regular rears, with a minimum starting pressure set 2psi lower at 18psi for the prototype rubber. One concern was that the new tyre would feel different to the current rear tyres, but Isola confirmed that the drivers feel that the new construction is similar to the specification that has been used throughout the 2021 season so far. “The general feedback that I collected is that the prototype is behaving in a very similar way compared to the C4 compound baseline,” said Isola. “The feedback from drivers was positive. Some found a bit more traction in the first laps, and some commented that the new prototype is very similar to the current C4. “But at the end of the day it was the target, because we know that the new construction is more robust but we didn’t want to change the behaviour and the balance or to ask the teams to make any set-up adjustment when they move to the new construction. That was confirmed in general.”
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