Car
The life of a Pirelli Formula 2 tyre before, during and after a race weekend
by Josh Suttill
5min read
Over 100 sets of tyres are used in Formula 2 across a Formula 1 race weekend, and official tyre supplier Pirelli has a crucial job in ensuring everything runs smoothly.
Car, Innovation, Motor
The science behind tyre degradation in Formula 1
Tyres are the sole contact patches between the car and the surface - and understanding them is crucial to finding performance on the track. But what happens to them over a weekend?
To better understand the life of the tyres during a race weekend in F1’s support categories, Raceteq sat down with Pirelli motorsport director Mario Isola to track the journey of an F2 tyre from start to finish.
Development and manufacturing
Just like with F1 tyres, Pirelli invests significant resources into the research and development of its F2 tyres.
The F2 tyres are manufactured at Pirelli’s facility in the small Romanian town of Slatina, where it also produces its F1 tyres.
“The production process is the same [as F1], and they're high-performance products. So we need to put in the same level of attention in the production of the Formula 2 tyres,” Isola tells Raceteq.
Pirelli motorsport director Mario Isola with the former Pirelli F2 tyre (R) and the latest spec (L)
“The idea is always to try and generate a little bit of difficulty for the drivers to manage the tyres, that is the same approach that we have in Formula 1.
“You have a soft tyre, which is quite an aggressive approach that requires some management and a hard tyre that is good for a long stint, with good consistency, but with a level of performance that is much lower.
“Looking at the result of the first races, I would say I'm quite happy. F2 races are always very good, a lot of action, a lot of overtaking.
“The process is usually that we agree with Bruno [Michel, F2 and F3 CEO], the promoter and the FIA on what the targets are for the following year, if we have to modify any of the compounds or the construction to have a different balance or different performance.
“But I think we're in a very good situation with the championship in Formula 2 and with Formula 3, this year with a new car and new 16-inch tyres.”
From 2025, Formula 3 uses the 16 inch Pirelli tyre
The F2 tyres are transported in much the same way as the F1 tyres, arriving at the circuit before being distributed to the teams - five sets of slick tyres and three sets of wets per driver.
One of the key differences for the development of F2 tyres is the ban on tyre blankets.
“It's a different philosophy to design the [F2] compounds, with a working range that is switching on the compounds a few degrees, from much lower temperature to the F1 tyre,” Isola says.
“The biggest difference is that you put less energy into a Formula 2 tyre compared to Formula 1. So the delta between cold and hot tyres is lower compared to F1 tyres. And we have been able to design compounds that are performing well from cold to running conditions.
“With F1 it's slightly different. That means you have very high temperature, that means very high pressures. You have to start with higher pressure compared to F2, so it's more difficult to remove the blankets without penalising the performance.”
Unlike Formula 1, Formula 2 cars do not use tyre blankets to preheat the tyre compounds
How the tyres are monitored
Pirelli keeps a close eye on the tyres throughout the race weekend, with its team of engineers monitoring their usage.
Each individual tyre set can be tracked via a unique barcode as well as TPMS [tyre pressure monitoring system], which is being used in F2 for the first time in the 2025 season, aligning it with F1.
“So there is a double checker, not only the barcode on the tyre, but also the association between the tyre and the rim,” Isola explains.
“So we have the possibility to reduce it to - I don't want to say zero, but close to zero - the mistakes in fitting or using the tyres.”
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A staff member checking a barcode on a 13 inch Pirelli tyre at its factory in Romania
Post-weekend analysis
Once the race weekend is done, the tyres are returned to Pirelli, who then conduct a detailed analysis of those tyres.
“We analyse the tyres as it’s very important to have an idea of how the tyres work on track, and clearly tyres used after the race, are for us, really important,” Isola adds.
“We section them, we analyse them, we have some indoor tests after usage that we can run to understand the level of integrity, to understand if there is any potential issue on the compound, for example.
“So we have a number of tests, let's call them routine tests, that we perform on Formula 2 tyres after the event.”
If no dry tyres are used during the weekend, the tyres are analysed and tested and hopefully used again later on in the season
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F2 tyre recycling
Once the tyres have been analysed, Pirelli then recycles them along with the F1 tyres.
“All the tyres are shipped back to the United Kingdom, where we have our technical centre, and we recycle all the tyres to generate secondary raw materials from used tyres for different applications like plastic floors, and we can use part of that for tarmac,” Isola says.
“There are different applications, but we recover secondary raw materials from the used tyres.”
When slick tyres are fitted to wheel rims, they can’t be used again because of the stress put through them, but with a much lower stress placed on wet tyres, those can be used again.
So, if there’s a completely dry F2 weekend and those allotted three wet tyres per driver aren’t used, they’ll be returned to Pirelli, who will use them later in the season.
From the moment they’re shipped from PIrelli’s factory in Romania to their final stage of life in the UK, Pirelli’s motorsport tyres follow a circular, complex, and carefully-choreographed life cycle.
