What Tires Will The Teams And Drivers Have For The 2022 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix and Sprint?

Formula 1 gets set to race in Europe for the first time in the 2022 season at the  Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Pirelli has announced what tires the teams will be allocated for the first Sprint weekend of the season.

Imola, alongside Monza, is a home race for Pirelli. It will be their 18-inch tire’s first taste of a Formula 1 Sprint – and for this Pirelli has announced a similar set of tire compounds to those allocated to the teams in Saudi Arabia.

This weekend will see the teams allocated 12 sets of tires instead of the usual 13, with the drivers set to be able to call upon the C2 (hard tire, x2 sets), C3 (medium tire, x4 sets), and C4 (soft tire, x6 sets). Along with that, the teams will also be given six sets of green intermediate tires and three sets of blue full wet tires.

“Imola is an old-school, challenging track, where overtaking can be tricky because the circuit is quite narrow in places,” said Pirelli’s Motorsport Director Mario Isola.

“So the strategy is likely to center around avoiding traffic, and effectively the teams start from scratch here in terms of tire knife-edge – as the compounds are completely different this year, and last year’s race also began on the wet-weather tires, before being interrupted by a lengthy red-flag period.

“Generally speaking, Imola is a medium-severity track for the tires, and it’s a venue that is used quite frequently. This means that we might see a little less track evolution than we’ve been accustomed to at other circuits as the track is well rubbered-in already: the first round of the Pirelli-equipped GT World Challenge took place at Imola last month, which gave us some valuable data.

“These are just some of the factors that the teams will have to consider when establishing the tire strategy for the opening Sprint session: another first for the 2022 season.” Imola will also play host to Formula 2 and the Formula 3 races. Pirelli has allocated yellow, medium, and purple supersoft tires for the F2 races. For the F3 races, the sole nominated compound is the yellow-walled medium tire.