The Mule F1 car testing programme continues in Barcelona this week as we read. The F1 teams Red Bull and Alfa Romeo are joining this programme. Alpine is running again for a second time after previously being engaged in another session this year in Bahrain. The 2022 F1 tyres are said to be different from the 2021 F1 tyres.
Further, it has been decided that dry testing would be conducted with AlphaTauri in Austria followed by Redbull and Aston Martin and Haas at Silverstone. After them, Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren will be testing in Hungary,
Further dry testing is planned with AlphaTauri in Austria, followed by Red Bull, Aston Martin and Haas at Silverstone, and then finally Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari in Hungary.
"In terms of development, we are in the process of finalising the construction and the profile of the 2022 F1 Tyres," said Isola.
"I would say we are at 80-90% the construction is finalised, and now we are starting a test campaign on new compounds.
Also See: Lewis Hamilton Claimed The 100th Pole Position Of His Career
"We have a new compound we are already using, a C3 level that is working quite well. It is the first one of the new family of compounds that we want to introduce for next year, with the characteristics that are required and were agreed in the target letter with the drivers.
"So much less overheating. Obviously, we need to validate that when we will have the final version of the cars."
Isola said that the mule car testing cannot provide all the answers since the 2022 F1 cars will be very different. However, they have somewhat of an idea as to how the 2022 F1 tyres could perform.
"At the moment we are using mule cars that should be enough representative of the cars for next year. But we know that next year's cars will be very different.
CLICK HEREto find a TyrePlex Dealer near you!
"And the other point that is something that we cannot test during a tyre development session is the influence of the slipstream, we have only one car or two cars that are running on track, there is not proper traffic.
"And so we can assume when we are designing a new tyre, a new tyre to reduce overheating. And also the new aero package should suffer less when they follow in other car.
"They should keep the downforce, or lose a maximum of 10%, that is a completely different situation compared to what we have now, where they lose up to 50% of the downforce, and obviously they start sliding. But this is something that we will have answer only next year."
Want to get "Wheel balancing" performed on your vehicle?CLICK HERE
Regarding the mule cars, "We asked the teams to put a level of downforce, minimum weight and the weight distribution that is in line with the expectation for next year.
"So all the mule cars are good enough to test if they are able to replicate what is going to happen next year.
"But we have some differences, like I was talking about overheating for example, because obviously we are using the brakes that are on the cars now, not the new system, and also without rim covers that will affect the performance and the heating of the rim.
"So there are still some question marks on next year, what we are trying to do is to have cars that are as much as possible representative of next year's performances."
