F1 planning 2011-style tyre degradation

The FIA is aiming to bring back tyre degradation that was previously seen during the 2011 and 2012 seasons. Potential tyre suppliers for the 2020 season have received a notice which includes a soft tyre that becomes two seconds per lap slower over 10% of a race distance.

Currently, F1's tyre supplier Pirelli produces a low degradation tyre, as was requested for the 2017 rule change. However, its chief, Mario Isola, has said that F1 will be returning to high degradation tyres in the future.

"We are analysing the numbers for degradation,” said Isola. “They’re quite high. That’s why before replying we are, with the guys in Milan, trying to make some simulations to understand what we achieve with these numbers. They are probably not far from 2011, 2012. We are making the comparisons to understand.

“Pure degradation [is one thing], a different thing is degradation during the race. Because during the race, the teams have it in all their interests to manage degradation and reduce it without reducing too much the pace in order to achieve the best result. They are in competition, so they have to do that.

“So we need to put on the table all these aspects to understand which is the final result. Because of all these numbers, it’s not very easy to predict that without support from the numbers.”