The move follows the Spanish Grand Prix, which had four pit stops per driver. The new range will combine elements from the 2012 and 2013 tyres to have both durability and performance.

Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery said: “Our aim is to provide the teams with a new range which mixes the stability of the 2012 tyres and the performance of the current ones. As a company, we have always moved quickly to make improvements where we see them to be necessary. After evaluating data from the first few races this year, we’ve decided to introduce a further evolution as it became clear at the Spanish Grand Prix that the number of pit stops was too high. The Spanish Grand Prix was won with four pit stops, which has only happened once before in our history. These changes will also mean that the tyres are not worked quite as hard, reducing the number of pit stops.”

With limited testing time, it’s clear now that our original 2013 tyre range was probably too performance-orientated for the current regulations. However, having identified this issue, we’re determined to rapidly resolve it. It’s worth underlining that the current regulations for winter tests limit the opportunity to test the tyres under the same conditions as the race season because of the lower temperature and restricted time. The Teams are of the same opinion as we are in wanting longer testing times and different locations for the next tests. We developed the 2013 tyres on the basis of careful simulations that were, however, not sufficient, taking into account the improved speed of cars (up to 3 seconds per lap).

We’ve also taken this step to avoid the delaminations that were caused by track debris. It’s important to point out that these delaminations, which occur when the tread comes off, do not compromise the safety of the tyres as the core structure of the tyre is not affected in any way, helping drivers to complete the lap and to change the damaged tyres safely. These delaminations were due to damage from debris that overheated the tread.   We’d like to thank all the teams for their continued and extremely valued support as we worked with them to identify the correct compromise between the pure speed that makes us the world leader in the Ultra High Performance sector and a global spectacle that is easy for Formula One fans to follow.”

Pirelli’s racing manager Mario Isola commented: “At the first round of this year’s GP3 Series, the drivers had to understand our new tyres very quickly. However, they all did a fantastic job and we could see already in the second race many drivers putting into practice everything they had learned during the first race. With Barcelona being probably the most demanding track of the year for the tyres, the drivers in both categories were faced with a very tough task but showed commendable maturity and racecraft that will stand them in good stead for Formula One. In GP2, we once again saw a wide variety of race strategies, with the fastest drivers who were able to use their tyres most effectively rewarded with the top points finishes. With both categories racing together for the first time it was a busy weekend for Pirelli, but we believe that we were able to give drivers from each series the ability to show the best of their skills and underline the correlation between the two feeder championships.”

For GP2, the P Zero Orange hard and P Zero Yellow soft tyres were nominated (the same nominations made for the opening two rounds in Malaysia and Bahrain). For GP3, just one compound is selected per race weekend: in Spain it was the hard compound. All the GP3 compounds carry the same yellow markings however.

With warm temperatures, an abrasive surface and a challenging track layout that features several long corners, Barcelona is extremely demanding on tyres as it puts one of the highest energy loadings of the year through them. Consequently, looking after the tyres by knowing when to push and when not to push was an essential skill in both categories.

In GP2, where there is a compulsory pit stop in the feature race, Sauber reserve driver Robin Frijns took victory on Saturday. Like all the frontrunners, he qualified on the soft tyre, lining up eighth on the grid. He made a good start and chose to make his stop for the hard tyres as soon as the pit stop window opened on lap six. This decision proved crucial to his race victory, as he was able to undercut his key rivals while managing his tyres correctly to the finish.

The Dutchman said: “I learned quite a lot from the last race in Bahrain. Everybody knows that Barcelona is quite a hard track on the tyres as well. But I managed them quite well and left a pretty decent gap to Jolyon Palmer the whole race and then Felipe Nasr came back and he was quite quick. I still had some tyres left so I could pull away a bit. That’s how I won.”

In the sprint race on Sunday, with no pit stops, Stefano Coletti won on the hard tyres and increased his championship lead, having got past polesitter Johnny Cecotto at the first corner. All the drivers used the hard tyre with the exception of Tom Dillman, who set the fastest lap of the race on the P Zero Yellow soft.

In GP3, a brand new 400-horsepower car means that the Pirelli P Zero range has been heavily revised for this season. With no pit stops allowed, the hard tyres were chosen for the heavy demands of Barcelona.

Cypriot driver Tio Ellinas became the first GP3 driver to win consecutive races in different seasons thanks to victory in the feature race, following on from his win at the final round in Monza last year. He also claimed pole and fastest lap, judging his pace perfectly and demonstrating the performance of the new P Zero compound and GP3 car, which is up to five seconds per lap quicker than the previous package.

Ellinas said: “We pushed from the beginning. We had a good fight; I think I was very clean with my moves. Towards the end we managed the win. Tyres were key today and now we know how to work them for the next race.”

As is the case for GP2, the grid for the sprint race in GP3 consisted of the top eight feature race finishers reversed. The 50th race in the history of GP3 resulted in a one-two for the new Koiranen GP team from Finland, with Aaro Vainio winning ahead of Kevin Korjus (who started from reverse pole). Vainio made a superb start to lead from fourth on the grid, managing his pace perfectly all the way to the finish. Once again, knowing exactly when and how hard to push in order to contain degradation was the key to success.

This year’s GP2 season takes in 11 rounds and 22 races, with GP3 taking in eight rounds and 16 races. The next round of the GP2 series takes place in Monaco from May 23-26, while the next round of GP3 is a stand-alone event at Valencia on June 16.

The new 639,000 square foot building accommodates nearly 2,000 corporate and North American employees and is connected to Goodyear’s existing Innovation Centre.

The building is a central campus for Goodyear, which manufactures its products in 52 facilities in 22 countries around the world, including Australia.

Goodyear said the state of the art facility delivers an exciting future for the company and will help its employees work together as one team.

http://www.goodyear.com/cfmx/web/corporate/media/news/story.cfm?a_id=944

Bridgestone will investigate whether the plant can be used as a natural rubber source for tyres, at its new Biorubber Process Research Centre in Arizona, USA.

Scientists believe the plant has similar properties to the Hevea tree, which is currently the main source of natural rubber in tyre production.

Bridgestone says 40 researchers and technicians will work on the project at the new facility to determine whether the plant can be a sustainable source of rubber for its products in the future.

The first rubber samples from the Guayule plant are expected to be ready for tyre evaluations in the middle of 2015.

http://www.tyrepress.com/News/27881.html

The new-generation RFT tyres allow motorists to continue driving for 80 kilometres at a speed of 80 kilometres an hour after a puncture or sudden loss of air pressure in the tyre.

Bridgestone says independent tests by German and Austrian automobile clubs have shown its summer and winter RFT range now match conventional tyres when it comes to noise, rolling resistance and comfort.

Bridgestone also claims the new technology makes for a safer journey because if the tyre loses air pressure, motorists will not lose control of their vehicle or have to worry about pulling over on a busy road to change the tyre.

http://www.bridgestonenewsroom.eu/stories/7492

Alonso also set a new record by becoming the only driver to win the Spanish Grand Prix from a far down as fifth on the grid, demonstrating how tyre strategy can be used to gain track position. Raikkonen – who used a completely different strategy to Alonso with one stop less – nonetheless ran him close, finishing the race just 10 seconds behind the winner. Raikkonen was the only driver to complete three opening stints on the P Zero White medium before one final stint on the P Zero Orange hard.

As a result, the championship has now closed up considerably with the top three drivers covered by just 17 points.

All the drivers started on the P Zero White medium tyre with the exception of the two Marussias and the Caterham of Charles Pic, who elected to start on the P Zero Orange hard. An early stop for Ferrari allowed Alonso to get past the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel and from then on the Spaniard was able to plan his strategy perfectly in order not to lose track position.

Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery said: “Strategy was again at the forefront of the Spanish Grand Prix, which as usual was very demanding on the tyres because of the unique characteristics of this circuit. This is why we saw high levels of degradation, which should not be seen again to this extent for the rest of the year. Our aim is to have between two and three stops at every race, so it’s clear that four is too many: in fact, it’s only happened once before, in Turkey during our first year in the sport. We’ll be looking to make some changes, in time for Silverstone, to make sure that we maintain our target and solve any issues rapidly. Congratulations to Fernando Alonso and Ferrari who pushed hard from start to finish to make the four-stop strategy work for them and seal a very popular result here. They planned their strategy from the start of the weekend, using the tyres wisely during qualifying, and then made it count with some fantastic overtaking moves.”

Fastest times of the day by compound:

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Longest stint of the race:

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Truth-O-Meter:

We predicted a three-stopper, but in fact Alonso went for a four-stop sprint strategy. He stopped for the first time on lap nine for the hard tyres, hard again on lap 21, medium on lap 36, and hard on lap 49. His team mate Felipe Massa adopted a similar strategy.

The top five selling cars in April were the Toyota Corolla (3,504), the Toyota Hilux (2,932), Mazda 3 (2,842), Holden Cruze (2,290) and Hyundai i30 (2,150).

Over half of the new vehicles sold were passenger vehicles, 28.6 per cent were SUV models and 18.2 per cent were light commercial vehicles.

Sales of light and small passenger cars continued to increase and made up 73 per cent of the total number of passenger vehicles sold in April. However, Government vehicle purchases continued to fall and were down by 14.9 per cent compared to the same time last year.

So far this year 358,165 new motor vehicles have been sold in Australia, which is a 5.6 per cent increase on the first four months of 2012.

http://www.fcai.com.au/news/news/all/all/327/new-vehicle-sales-up-7.6-in-april-2013

Paul Hembery: “We’re introducing a revised version of our hard tyre in Spain, which is closer in characteristics to the 2012 tyre. This new tyre gives us a wider working temperature window – although it delivers a little bit less in terms of pure performance – but it should allow the teams to envisage an even wider variety of race strategies than before in combination with the other compounds, which remain unchanged this year. This is a decision that we’ve come to having looked at the data from the first four races, with the aim of further improving the spectacle of Formula One. In fact this is almost a tradition with us now, as we also introduced a revised version of the hard tyre for the Spanish Grand Prix in 2011, which was our first year in the sport. We’d expect the medium tyre to still be significantly faster and this is the one that the teams are likely to qualify on, whereas the hard is likely to be the preferred race tyre. As permitted by the current regulations, we’ll be supplying an extra set of prototype hard compound tyres for free practice, which will hopefully ensure that all the cars run throughout these sessions. It’s something we wanted to do to encourage all the teams to run as much as possible right from the start, especially with the rookie drivers, to give fans the spectacle they deserve to see.”

Jean Alesi: “I think Barcelona is the place where we will really be able to assess the tyres properly for the first time, as it’s the first European race of the year on a circuit that is a well-known reference point without any particular peculiarities. It’s a circuit that I personally always liked as a driver although it is very complicated: especially Turn 3, which is extremely demanding on the tyres. I remember it always being quite hard to overtake there, and this is one aspect where Pirelli has transformed the race in Barcelona, thanks also to the DRS. Traction is a key area of performance, which also puts a big emphasis on the tyres, so this is one of the most important races of the year because it acts as a really useful indicator for the season ahead. Introducing an extra set of tyres for free practice is a very smart move, as it’s bad for the sport to have the cars sitting in the garage for a long time. It will be interesting to see as well the effect that the new specification of hard tyre has on the race. On the whole the teams should be very well-prepared for Barcelona as they have a lot of data from testing at this circuit: the big question is how much of that data will still be relevant, as ambient and track temperatures will have changed enormously since the teams were last there.”

The circuit from a tyre point of view:

Barcelona is a fast, flowing and technical track, which asks a lot from the tyres, also due to the high temperatures and reasonably abrasive surface. Most of all though, it is the high lateral energy loadings that dictate exactly how the tyres degrade. Three pit stops is expected to be the favoured strategy, as was the case last year.

The 4.655-kilometre track contains 16 corners, mostly right-handers, putting the emphasis on the left tyres in particular, which do most of the work.

Last year, the hard and soft tyres were selected – but this year’s compounds are generally softer than their equivalents last year, so the 2013 medium is broadly equivalent to last year’s soft. The top five finishers selected a three-stop strategy at last year’s Spanish Grand Prix, all starting on the soft tyre. The best-placed two-stopper came eighth, having started from last.

Information about the Spanish circuit and how Pirelli measures tyre degradation is available copyright-free for media use on the following video link: www.pirelli.com/f1pressarea

Technical tyre notes:

The key to a quick lap time in Barcelona is finding the right compromise between aerodynamic grip and mechanical grip. Most teams run a stiff set-up at the front, to help turn-in, but go softer at the back to gain traction.

Changing wind direction – a significant variable in Barcelona – is a factor that has an important impact

on car set-up, especially during the first corner.

Nine out of the last 10 races at the track have been won from pole position. Last year was no exception. Qualifying will be crucial – which means putting the extra set of tyres in free practice to good use in order to find an optimal set-up.

The tyre choices so far:

Meet the Pirelli F1 Team: Max Damiani, F1 Chief Engineer Co-ordinator

Max was born in a small town not far from Milan, where he has lived all his life. He joined Pirelli in 1991. His first role within the Italian firm was working on Pirelli’s World Rally Championship programmes with Ford and Toyota. Subsequently he also took up a role behind the steering wheel, becoming a test driver for Pirelli’s road car products, mostly for SUVs. But such was his passion for motorsport that he continued to work on events during the weekends. Since 2001 he has worked full-time in Pirelli’s competitions department as a senior engineer, in different championships including GT racing both in Europe and America. When Pirelli entered Formula One in 2011, Max took on the role of engineer co-ordinator as well as remaining a senior engineer. Despite maintaining his youthful good looks, Max is actually the only person on the current programme who has a connection to Pirelli’s former engagement in Formula One that ended in 1991. During that final season, Max worked on three Formula One races as an engineer. In the rare moments that he has to himself, Max enjoys participating in sports – particularly a martial art named Wing Chun and downhill mountain biking – and spending time with his family. Sadly, he doesn’t have time to compete as an amateur rally driver any more: a passion he shares with Pirelli’s racing manager Mario Isola. So Sebastien Loeb can relax…

Other news from Pirelli:

Supporting Formula One, Barcelona hosts the opening round of this year’s GP3 Series as well as round three of the GP2 Series. Both of the grand prix feeder categories are supplied exclusively by Pirelli.

Pirelli’s Paul Hembery attended the opening round of the British Rally Championship last weekend: the Pirelli Richard Burns Foundation Rally, which was won by Finland’s Jukka Korhonen on Pirelli tyres. Pirelli hosted a charity evening during the event to raise funds for the Richard Burns Foundation, in memory of the 2001 World Rally Champion who died of a brain tumour in 2005.

The latest round of the Pirelli-backed FIA GT Series at Zolder in Belgium resulted in one of the closest finishes in the history of the championship. The Lamborghini crew of Peter Kox and Stefan Rosina beat the Audi of Stephane Ortelli and Laurens Vanthoor by just 0.448s after an hour of racing.

In a comment regarding the determination, ACCC Deputy Chair Dr Michael Schaper stated that: “The ACCC is satisfied that the scheme is likely to result in a benefit to the public by reducing the volume of used tyres entering the domestic waste stream or being exported overseas and burned for fuel in an environmentally unsustainable way. This will reduce the environmental and health and safety hazards associated with such disposal methods.”

The Australian Tyre Industry Council, of which Goodyear & Dunlop Tyres is an active member, commented through spokesperson Silvio de Denaro: “The scheme will establish better ways of collecting and disposing of end-of-life tyres ensuring that over time this resource acquires a positive value and is actively sought by recyclers. New markets for tyre-derived products will be encouraged and developed; we very much look forward to working with other important industry players such as the Australian Motor Industry Federation in developing and implementing this scheme.”

Richard Dudley, CEO of the Australian Motor Industry Federation feels that “this is a historic moment for the Australian Automotive Industry. This outcome illustrates the shared commitment of key participants towards reducing the impact of motor vehicles on our nation’s landscape and our community.”

As expected, competitors faced a challenging cocktail of tricky stages, loose and buried stones, and conditions that combined rain, fog and mud. The MICHELIN LATITUDE Cross S2 took all these difficulties in its stride, however. Indeed, as they challenged for domination, Sébastien LOEB (CITROEN Total Abu Dhabi WRT) and Sébastien OGIER (VOLKSWAGEN Motorsport), didn’t hesitate to push them hard all the way…

That was especially true on the second day when the two Frenchmen were locked in a blowfor- blow battle for victory, and their duel highlighted the versatility, competitiveness and strength of the MICHELIN LATITUDE Cross S2.

On the second visit to Friday’s ‘Santa Rosa-Vila del Dique’ (SS8), the MICHELIN LATITUDE Cross S2 helped the eventual winner Sébastien LOEB to improve his time compared with the morning’s pass (SS6) by more than 30 seconds, while Sébastien OGIER was almost 28 seconds quicker.

Jacques MORELLI, manager of MICHELIN’s rally programmes: “The fight between Sébastien LOEB and Sébastien OGIER provided an eloquent illustration of the performance and versatility of the new MICHELIN LATITUDE Cross S2. The performance gains between first and second attempts at the same stages were appreciable and revealed the value of the work undertaken by MICHELIN’s developers. They have succeeded in taking into account the constraints dictated by the new 2013 regulations which have necessitated extra durability with no detriment to performance. I also want to underline the outstanding robustness of our tyres over the rally’s three days. The pace was very fast and the drivers made a few errors, but the MICHELIN LATITUDE Cross S2 stood up to the punishment. For example, Mikko HIRVONEN went wide on one stage and hit a rock which led to a tyre becoming unseated.

The incident occurred about 20 kilometres from the end of the stage but he was able to keep up the same pace for the next 15 kilometres and he only ended up dropping 30 seconds over the last five kilometres…”

The next round of the 2013 FIA World rally Championship will be in Greece at the beginning of June. It will be the fourth gravel rally in a row and is once again a highly specific event. The nominated tyre will be the hard-compound MICHELIN LATITUDE CROSS H2