Pirelli believes it has solved blistering issues for 2019

Pirelli says it is confident that it has eliminated issues surrounding blistering tyres for the 2019 season. Pirelli has changed its compound structure once again in 2019, with just five available dry compounds to chose from, labelled 'C1' through to 'C5'.

At the Spanish, French and British Grands Prix last year, Pirelli used thinner thread tyes in response to blistering suffered at pre-season testing. The thinner rubber will be used at all rounds in 2019.

Teams were able to experience the new tyres at the post-season test at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, however Pirelli's motorsport director Mario Isola says that the test didn't offer much insight for high degradation tracks such as Silverstone.

"On this track [Yas Marina] in some conditions you mask a little bit the differences,” Isola said. “I believe that in different tracks they will feel the differences more. If I compare just the reduction in tread thickness, that is one of the new characteristics that we decided to implement in the new tyres. This [reduced] the blisters massively at Barcelona, Paul Ricard and Silverstone.

“And in Barcelona we had a clear comparison made by all the teams because they had a pre-season test but in Silverstone, for example, we were there for our tyre development test we compare the normal version with the reduced one and it was clear that the normal one was going to blister a lot but the reduced one was a lot better.

“So I believe that we have a confirmation of the differences of the new tyres probably more in circuits where the level of energy is higher. Here also during the race we didn’t have any blister so comparison is more difficult.”