Pirelli to test 2021 prototype tyres in Portuguese GP practice

Formula 1’s tyre supplier Pirelli will have 30 minutes to test 2021 prototype tyres during practice for the Portuguese Grand Prix as they look to finalise the new construction.

The Italian company had initially intended to test the prototypes for 30 minutes in FP2 for both the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone and the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona, but opted against doing this.

“We decided to postpone the tests which were planned at the second race at Silverstone and Barcelona to redesign some prototypes with the extra time to slightly revise the construction for next year,” said Pirelli motorsport boss Mario Isola.

“It’s only 30 minutes. We will supply different run plans for different teams in order to collect as much information as we can to define the tyre for next year.”

Portugal has been chosen as the venue, which Isola appreciates is not ideal given Formula 1 has never raced there – but he’s confident the track characteristics and climate will be in their favour.

“This is planned for Portimao,“ he said. “It’s a new track. We don’t have a lot of data from Portimao.

"From now onwards, we have a lot of new tracks [such as Mugello, Nurburgring, Imola and Istanbul], so we decided on which track we want to test and that is Portimao, which is a high severity circuit where we probably find some good weather and that is why we decided to nominate Portimao for our test.”

It comes after the FIA revealed the detail of their proposed moves to reduce downforce on Formula 1 cars for 2021, with cornering speeds having risen again in 2020.