And for this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix, the Italian tire manufacturer did just that, adding an extra golden stripe to the side of the soft tires. The hard compound prepared for the Sepang race – prime tires for the weekend – will not have any additional markings though. And this is all just a preliminary tweak, until Pirelli will come up with a final solution starting the Turkish Grand Prix.
“We have had obviously a number of comments that people could not recognize the tires, and the stripe is not an ideal solution,” revealed Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery, admitting that the solution found for Malaysia is an interim one.
“For Turkey, we will have a much stronger branding on the sidewall. We won't have the stripe; we will connect up the Pirelli and P-Zero wording with more bands of colour. It will mean that as it rotates, the black won't dominate. It will look like a turning circle of yellow - and be predominantly yellow in colour.”
“We will do the same branding for all of the different compounds. From the testing we have done so far, it seems to work very well,” he added.
Prior to the start of the 2011 F1 season, Pirelli has chosen to mark each compound differently, considering the importance tires will have in race strategies throughout the season (due to their highly degradable nature). Those markings are as follows: Wet – orange, Intermediate - light blue, Super soft – red, Soft – yellow, Medium – white, Hard – silver.
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