Pirelli announces softer tires for Miami and Imola

Pirelli continues to gradually release its tire selections for the 2025 season. In Miami, the selection will be identical to that seen in Melbourne for the season opener, and in Saudi Arabia from April 18 to 20. The C3, C4 and C5 tires will therefore be the hard, medium and soft compounds respectively on the Florida track. A choice a notch softer than at the 2024 Grand Prix, which saw the first victory in Formula 1 de Lando Norris“When we started planning the production and shipping of the tires for the first races, our goal was to run all the compounds in the new range at the start of the season, as the circuits have very different characteristics,” explained Mario Isola, Pirelli’s racing director.

The new compound for this 2025 season, the C6, which is the softest in the range, will have the opportunity to be used for the first time for the Grand Prix of Emilia-Romagna. At Imola from May 16 to 18, the C6 will logically be the soft tire, alongside the C5 (medium) and the C4 (hard). As for Miami, these choices are a notch softer than those made for the Imola round in 2024, and which this time saw Max Verstappen to impose himself at the wheel of his Red BullThe use of softer compounds is intended to create more drama and uncertainty in Grands Prix where one-stop strategies were common last year. Given the criticism received by the recent Japanese Grand Prix, where track resurfacing led to very little tire degradation, Pirelli had managed to predict what was going to happen...

“We are well aware that teams and drivers have become very adept at managing and caring for their tires to achieve the best possible race result, and that drivers always want to push the limits to experience the sensations that only a Formula 1 car can offer. We had confirmation of this last Sunday at Suzuka, where, even in a race that wasn’t particularly exciting in terms of on-track action, everyone said they were happy to be able to continually reduce their lap time until the end of each stint. However, we must find a balance with the desire shared by all the key players in our sport to create the conditions for unpredictable and spectacular races. Tires and their behavior are an important part of this picture and, as a partner of Formula 1, we want to be proactive in this regard.”

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