Isola: The decision to bring tires one step softer was the right one

      Mario Isola, Head of Pirelli's racing division, commented on the results of the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, which was won by Max Verstappen, and appreciated the effectiveness of the new soft C6 line-up.

      Mario Isola: "An exciting, eventful race completed an eventful weekend, which saw the full-fledged debut of the new C6 line-up. Now we have to analyze all the data collected over these three days, which will help us choose the lineups for the races in the second half of the season.

      Now we can say that the decision to bring tires to Imola one step softer than last year turned out to be the right one. If we talk about the first part of the race, we don't take the second part into account because of the safety car, then we saw that all the riders controlled the pace in the first segment. However, as soon as someone made an unexpected move, in this case Charles Leclair with a pit stop on lap ten, a change in strategy began.

      Someone decided to extend the first leg as long as possible, while others realized that the "trimming" of the Ferrari was working fine, and were forced to react to this.  In fact, on fresh tires and on an empty track, Leclair won back a lot of positions.

      The events in the second part of the race make it difficult to accurately answer the question of to what extent an early pit stop would have paid off, or whether this step would have forced those who did so to switch to a two-stop strategy. This means that the decision to bring softer tyres has opened up the possibility for more strategy options both in terms of pit stops and in terms of length of stretches."