Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has revealed that there are “millions of reasons” why Formula 1 “would love” to keep Pirelli as their tyre supplier, ahead of the battle for 2025.
The Italian manufacturer’s current deal with F1 expires at the end of 2024, although head of Pirelli Motorsport Mario Isola has confirmed that the company have “presented” an offer to the sport’s bosses to extend their agreement.
Pirelli took over from Bridgestone as F1’s tyre supplier in 2011 and have since gone on to enjoy a relative amount of success.
The company have in many ways done too good of a job, given how often nowadays each driver only needs to pit once.
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Pirelli have ploughed millions into the sport and into their tyre development, whilst they’ve also been the main sponsor for several races.
There were some suggestions that Bridgestone were considering making an offer of their own to return to the sport, something which would result in a tyre war.
One thing that the sport’s tyre supplier from 2025 will have to do is design a tyre for the new power unit regulations in 2026, when the sport will enter its next era.
Isola is hopeful that their offer will be accepted by F1’s bosses, to continue supplying tyres to the pinnacle of motorsport and its junior categories.
“No news compared to the last time we spoke,” Isola said.
“We presented our offer. Obviously, the tender is quite complicated and there are a lot of details that must be discussed with F1 and with the FIA, with the teams.
“It is not only for Formula 1, but also for the support series, like Formula 2, Formula 3, and F1 Academy. So it’s quite a complex package. And I hope and I’m still positive for that.”
Interestingly, there is no deadline on the “commercial negotiations”, with the only deadline having been for any prospective tyre supplier to submit their technical documents.
“No. The only deadline was for us to present the technical specification, the technical document and for the FIA to tell us if we are an approved bidder, which happened a few months ago, and now the commercial negotiation has no deadline,” added Isola.
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Whilst there is no deadline, Horner believes it’ll be very difficult for the likes of Bridgestone to return, whilst hinting at the amount of money Pirelli are spending and offering the championship.
“It’s never too late,” Horner said. “It depends, as with all these… Pirelli is a great company and I’m sure in their tender they’ve offered generous terms to the promoter, to the teams. And you know, we’d love to…
“There’s many, many millions of reasons that we would love to continue with Pirelli,” he laughed.
“So, you know, they’re a great tyre company, they’ve given us a great service and hopefully there’s, as I say, several million reasons that that will continue.”