Pirelli Kicks Off Wet Abu Dhabi Night Testing

While others are still enjoying their last days of vacationing outside of Formula One, the series new tire supplier Pirelli have gone full speed on their compound development for the season to come. And a new episode of that kicked off today, on a soaking wet Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi, where test driver Pedro de la Rosa has began mileage at the wheel of Pirelli's test car at night.

And it's not a coincidence that the Italian tire maker chose this particular venue, time of day and weather conditions to conduct its testing, as the meeting – which is set to extend to tomorrow night also – is aimed at developing Pirelli's wet and intermediate tires. Additionally, the warmer temperatures in the Middle East make it easier for the tire maker to evaluate the true potential of their tires based on the right parameters.

“The reason we're here is because it's warmer,” confirmed Pirelli's head of motorsport Paul Hembery. “Of course we could find plenty of wet testing in Europe at Valencia, Silverstone or elsewhere, but in Europe when it's wet it's also cold.”

“There are wet races in F1 in Asia - Malaysia, Japan, possibly Singapore - and those places are different, the ambient temperature stays very high even when it's raining. The compounds are extremely sensitive to temperatures in wet conditions, so this provides different information for us on competitive use.”

“And we're testing at night time because we don't want the sun to evapourate the water on the track,” further explained Hembery, who also admitted that part of the night testing is also meant to evaluate the degree of visibility during such conditions during race time, under artificial lights.

This is Pirelli's last test before the official winter testing season in Formula One, scheduled to kick off in Valencia some two weeks from now.