The Pirelli WRC tyres were initially tested by the world-famous Hyundai Motorsport and Toyota Gazoo racing last month. The teams will return with tyre setup which will provide a better experience than the previous testing. Pirelli prepares for its first season in the WRC.
Ford drivers Teemu Suninen and Gus Greensmith of the M-Sport team is all set to have a taste of the four different WRC Pirelli tyres available at the beginning of the season.
Following the initial testing, Pirelli’s rally manager, Terenzio Testoni said: "The two teams that tested went through the complete range of tyres. We had a good range of weather to get ready for the Monte with dry roads and then some slush, some ice and snow.
"The teams understand that we're with a control tyre now and, yes, performance is important, but it’s not the priority."
The goal for Pirelli is consistency across the tyres and, of course, an absence of punctures.
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"We want tyres that are easy for the teams to work with in terms of set-up," said Testoni. "We are in the beginning now and, of course, while we have a lot of knowledge from being in rallying for a very long time, we are learning again for these cars."
Pirelli’s head of F1 and car racing, Mario Isola, added: "The priority is to supply tires which are good and durable. The situation is different now [with the control tyre]. What we want to do is make sure every team is the same.
"Every team will have a dedicated engineer, like we do in F1. And then we have a chief engineer and Terenzio in charge."
Pirelli’s head of F1 and car racing, Mario Isola, mentioned about the first test of their tyres for the WRC: "The first test has been positive. Clearly, we are looking to provide a good durable product with almost no punctures. We want to give a strong tyre.
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"It’s true to say this isn't the easiest rally to come back to the WRC on. We all know Rallye Monte-Carlo can be the complicated one for tyres and it's also true to say developing the tyres in the middle of the pandemic means this hasn’t been the easiest time in our lives. But we are here and we are working with the teams.
"Like in Formula 1, each manufacturer will have a dedicated Pirelli engineer, then we will have a chief engineer and then we have Terenzio [Testoni, rally activity manager] who is in charge [of the programme]."
This new journey of Pirelli seems to be going in the right direction and the tyre maker keeps positivity all over to make sure their product will be the best.
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