“The engineers are in the garages with their own headsets, collecting feedback and taking wear checks. At the end of each day, they provide a summary of the results to me. I then collect all 10 summaries and try to create one record for the teams, the FIA and F1 – we share this information between them all.”
Testing 1, 2, 3…
The most recent example event is last year’s post-season test in Abu Dhabi, for which Pirelli supplied their existing 2024 tyres and updated 2025 rubber after intensive development work – which included a special practice session at the Mexico City Grand Prix.
READ MORE: Leclerc tops post-season test in Abu Dhabi as Sainz, Ocon and more debut for new teams
Almost 15,000 kilometres were racked up across the day, leaving F1’s sole supplier with plenty of homework to complete throughout the winter break, while considering those aforementioned set-up changes, drivers splitting their running between ’24-spec and ’25-spec tyres and changing air and track temperatures.
“There’s a lot of data, a lot of runs, a lot of laps,” smiles Berra. “We also get telemetry from the teams, which is very important for us. We then verify that all the data is correct and aligned with the runs of the team – all the lap times, etcetera.
“With the 2025 tyres, we were interested to see if we had improved the overheating effect, which was one of the limitations throughout the last couple of seasons. We also collected information about the delta [difference in lap times] between the different compounds in the range, which is really, really interesting.
