The holiday season is also that of reviews in F1, and Pirelli is no exception to the rule.
The sole manufacturer of F1 thus took stock of the past season, which was inevitably a record year: since tires have never covered so much distance! It must be said that there were 24 Grands Prix, a number never reached…
This year, the Pirellis (all uses combined) covered an impressive distance in total, equivalent to almost an imaginary journey between the Earth and the Moon. By totaling 334,942.175 kilometers over 65.534 laps, from the first free practice session in Bahrain to the checkered flag in Abu Dhabi, the Pirellis covered 94% of the distance that separates the Earth from the Moon at perigee, the point closest to its 27-day orbit, Pirelli said.
This increase compared to 2023 is explained by the addition of the Emilia-Romagna and Chinese Grands Prix to the calendar, which added 27,016.375 kilometers.
93.59% of the season was covered with slicks (dry tires), while Cinturato intermediate tires saw a slight increase, from 5.67% to 5.84% (19,566.862 km). Conversely, Cinturato extreme rain tires were used much less, going from 0.64% to 0.57%. Because pilots are always highly criticized for their lack of performance, heating, etc.
Among the slicks, the C3 compound remains the most in demand, being right in the middle of the range and present at every event although its proportion has dropped from 36.57% to 32.06%. C4s are the second most used (23.47%), followed by C5s (16.84%), which now exceed C2s (14.97%). C1s remain the least used, representing only 5.56% of slicks in 2024.
These changes notably reflect adjustments in the choice of compounds, such as for Melbourne and Interlagos where softer options (C3-C4-C5 instead of C2-C3-C4) were chosen.
Prototype tires (tests for future years), excluded from the main data, were used for 2,306.944 kilometers, less than in 2023, because their use was limited to a competition test in Mexico, while the year Previously, they were deployed during free practice in Barcelona, Suzuka and Mexico.
The record for the longest stint on a single set of tires goes to Pierre Gasly, who covered 300.150 kilometers (50 laps) in Baku with C3s (designated as hard tires for this Grand Prix). Charles Leclerc holds the record for the C2, covering 43 laps in Jeddah (265.525 km). George Russell used a set of C4s for 77 laps at Monaco (256.949 km), while Nico Hülkenberg pushed the C5s for 57 laps at Zandvoort (242.763 km). In Singapore, Yuki Tsunoda completed 28 laps (141.820 km) and also holds the intermediate record with 191.844 km in Montreal. Finally, Liam Lawson covered 81.871 km on extreme rain tires, a record this season.
Pirelli supplied a total of 8,016 sets of tires to the teams, of which 2,718 were never used. Thanks to the policy of dismantling and reusing unused intermediate and extreme rain tires, approximately 3,500 tires were not produced and thus saved.
On the slicks, 935 sets (11.66%) mounted on rims never touched the track, while an additional 948 sets (11.82%) were used for only one to three laps, mostly during qualifying or fast lap simulations.
Among the 2024 Grands Prix, Japan had the most tire changes with 46 stops at Suzuka, while Jeddah had the fewest with 19. In Monaco, a first-lap red flag allowed all drivers to change of tires during the interruption, limiting race stops to just seven.
In terms of temperatures, the hottest race took place at Interlagos with 35.6°C recorded during the Sunday race. Silverstone was the coolest, with temperatures ranging between 10.9°C and 13.9°C during the race. Regarding track temperature, the Hungaroring reached a peak of 58.6°C, followed by Imola with 52.5°C.
Conversely, Silverstone had the coldest track (12.8°C), and Las Vegas was the coolest race with a track at 16.8°C.
