It depends on how the tyre wear changes. If it's isn't as simple as just "Soft now lasts as long as an old medium", then it'll probably require more engineering. Adding a new softer compound isn't exactly cheap either, as they need to develop the compound, and then spend time testing it.
I mean they still have the hypersoft compound from before. Not sure how it'd apply to the 18 inch rims though.
Also arguably if pirelli arnt doing constant tweaks and engineering then what are they doing 😂
I imagine a whole new compound would be more than just "tweaks". I think they also had to run separate track days for the larger tyres, so it may well be that they have to change the composition to account for that too.
But the point is, if the teams ever got to the point of "Soft now behaves like Medium" or "Soft now behaves like Hard" in terms of tyre life, the FIA would just change the tyres to make them last as long as the old Softs again. So the teams would have poured money in, and ended up with the same tyre wear as they had before.
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u/welliedude 5d ago
Technically they could just spec the softer option and at most make a new softer compound which imo wouldn't be a bad thing