Why F1 must find a solution to its wasted tyres problem

While Formula 1 continues to make good gains in improving its sustainability, one of the most obvious areas of wastage clearly still needs addressing.

With the quest to reduce environmental impact being all about marginal gains rather than delivering a silver bullet solution, it is quite remarkable that F1 finds itself left with so many unused tyres over the course of a season.

The reality of this situation emerged in an info document that Pirelli sent out on Thursday detailing some interesting stats from the 2024 season – which included the fact that F1’s tyres cumulatively covered a distance of 334,942.175 kilometres over 65,534 laps.

Tucked away amid the data were some interesting numbers related to the number of sets delivered – and especially how many ended up not being called into action at all.

Pirelli says it supplied teams will a total of 8016 new sets in 2024 – which was divided up into 6100 sets of slicks and 1916 of wet weather rubber (1428 inters and 488 wets). Of this total, 2718 sets were never used – which is around 34% of the entire supply.

Some of these were rain tyres that were never required, but there were a fair few slicks that also never saw the light of day.

Pirelli medium tyres

Photo by: Erik Junius

Pirelli says that 935 sets of slicks – just more than 15% of the total taken to races – were fitted to rims and never left the garage.

Furthermore, 948 sets of slicks (15.5%) completed between just one and three laps – being used either just for qualifying or in quali sims in practice.

The number of totally unused tyres is quite eye-opening when put in the context of all these tyres effectively being wasted resources on two fronts.

First, there is the question of effort and materials, in terms of manufacturing and then needing to destroy and recycle these sets.

Then beyond that there are transportation considerations to take into account too based on flying this rubber all the way around the world for nothing.

It is little wonder that Pirelli itself noted in its document: “The issue of more efficient tyre usage during the race weekend remains on the table.”

Finding a solution

The issue of wasted tyres is something that Pirelli has been pushing hard on in recent years, and improvements have already been made for 2024.

This came through the use of a ‘strip and fit’ policy for extremes and inters – meaning that tyres that were mounted at one race could be stripped and refitted for the following. This meant that around 3500 fewer tyres needed to be produced last year compared to 2023.

A trolley of Pirelli tyres

Photo by: Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images

Reality means that it will be impossible for F1 to ever end up in a situation where there are no wasted tyres, but it is clear more can be done.

On the rain tyre element, consideration could be given to shifting F1 to just having a single type of wet tyre.

It is pretty obvious in F1 right now that the current performance dynamics of the inter and the extreme trigger a scenario where there is a lot of wastage.

The extreme is designed to resolve problems of aquaplaning in really bad conditions – but the tyre is so rarely used because, by throwing up so much water along with the diffuser, cars never run in such terrible weather.

Pirelli’s 2024 data highlights the problem. Intermediates were used for a total of 5.84% of the entire distance covered by teams; the extreme was just 0.57%.

Having a single wet tyre to cope with the range of conditions that run from damp to the point where cars no longer race would be an easy win for cutting back on tyre production. On the slick issue, it is inevitable that there will be some sets that are only used for three laps or so because of qualifying.

Sets of Medium and Hard Pirelli tyres used by McLaren

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

However, reducing the number of tyres unused totally could be achieved through different sporting regulations, perhaps forcing teams to use specific compounds in certain sessions.

F1 trialled the Alternative Tyre Allocation (ATA) at two races in 2023 – reducing the number of sets given to each driver down from 13 to 11. The rules forced drivers to use hard tyres in Q1, mediums in Q2 and softs in Q3.

But the idea did not get the support needed from teams to become the norm from the start of this year. There were concerns that the ATA limited running in practice too much and it handed an advantage to the quickest teams who were better on the harder compounds in qualifying.

The ATA was ruled out for adoption and the idea of a reduced allocation has since fallen away from the spotlight.

Pirelli felt that this was a missed opportunity. As head of F1 and car racing Mario Isola said at the time: “The decision to drop this format, for me, was not the right one.

“I believe that if the direction for the future is to reduce the championship’s carbon footprint, we have to accept to lose something.”

And as Pirelli’s latest numbers show, this is a topic that definitely needs some fresh attention.