Pirelli has confirmed its schedule of tests for the 2018 F1 season. All 10 teams will have the opportunity to contribute to tyre development during the championship.

“We have been able to distribute one dry session to each team,” said sporting director Mario Isola. “All the teams replied in a positive way so we are going to test with all the teams, one dry session.”

“Talking about wet we have [fewer] sessions so we have three teams who were available to test in wet and we allocated a wet test to each of these three teams.”

Isola predicted lap times will continue to fall at the resurfaced Circuit de Catalunya in next week’s test and would “probably” fall as low as 1’17.

“We ran a test three weeks ago here with GT cars,” he explained. “At the beginning the Tarmac was very oily, very greasy. Then we had one day of heavy rain. And after that day the Tarmac was really clean and the level of grip was very high, and the lap time for GT cars was a lot faster.”

“So indications, considering they are running in 1’19 in this condition, I would say that probably next week we see one step in lap time. 1’19 was the best time last year so I can imagine they can improve from this 1’19 more than one second.”

“Obviously it’s difficult to judge how much of this because of the new cars, because of the track, because of the tyres. We can make some assumptions but at the end of the day when you have that many elements changing it’s difficult.”

2018 F1 tyre testing calendar

Venue Tyres Team/s Date Shanghai* Slick Force India 17-18 April Fiorano Wet Ferrari 19-20 April Circuit de Catalunya Slick McLaren and Haas 15-16 May Paul Ricard Wet Mercedes 30-31 May Vallelunga Slick Toro Rosso 14-15 June Silverstone Slick Red Bull and Williams 10-11 July Paul Ricard Wet McLaren and Haas 5-6 September Paul Ricard Slick Mercedes and Ferrari 20-21 September Suzuka Slick Renault 9-10 October Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez Slick Sauber 30 October

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2018 F1 season