What are the different colored tires in F1? — FormulaNerds.com

One thing Formula 1 drivers have to do in every race is complete a pit stop and change tires. Not only do they have to change to a new set, but they also have to switch compounds.

A Mercedes F1 team member with the team’s Intermediate tires ahead of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix (Image Credit: Buda Mendes – Getty Images)

Keeping track of the different kinds of tires can be difficult, but Pirelli, who supplies Formula 1’s tires, makes it much easier by colour-coding the different compounds.

What are the different kinds of tyres?

Pirelli supplies Formula 1 with five different compounds of tyre: soft, medium, hard, intermediate, and full wet.

The softest tire compound is the quickest, but degrades faster and therefore doesn’t last as long. On the other end, the hard tire lasts for much longer but doesn’t afford as much pace as the soft or medium.

Intermediate tires are used in partially wet conditions and have grooves in them to give the drivers more traction. The full wet tires are even more grooved and used in more dramatic weather conditions.

Although there are only three kinds of dry weather tyres, soft, medium, and hard, Pirelli has five different compounds. The C1, C2, C3, C4, and C5 tires are all used throughout the season. C1 is the hardest, and they get progressively softer as the number goes up.

Pirelli’s tire allocation for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (Image Credit: @pirellisport on Twitter)

Depending on the track, Pirelli will choose which three of those compounds to designate for each Formula 1 weekend. On a weekend when drivers need more durable tires (like Bahrain or Silverstone) Pirelli will use the C1 as the hard, the C2 as the medium, and C3 as the soft. On tracks where tire wear isn’t as much of an issue (like Monaco), the C3 is the hard, the C4 is the medium, and the C5 is the soft.

So the C3 compound could be the hard tire on one weekend and the soft tire on the next, depending on what Pirelli feels is necessary for each track.

How do you keep track?

Knowing which tire is which can get complicated when compounds can switch from weekend to weekend. Luckily, Pirelli has a system that color codes tires based on what designation they have that weekend.

The soft tire is always marked red, the medium is always marked yellow, and the hard is always marked white. The wet weather tires also have their own colours, with the intermediate being green and the full wet being blue.

So see

Every weekend, Pirelli allocates 13 sets of dry weather tires per car: eight sets of softs, three sets of mediums, and two sets of hards. That decision makes it so that teams have to plan accordingly and can’t just use the same kind of tire over and over again.

Max Verstappen on soft tires during the Belgian Grand Prix (Image Credit: Alessio De Marco – Getty Images)

Why does it matter?

Knowing which tire is which is a crucial part of every Formula 1 race. As previously mentioned, each driver needs to run at least two different compounds per race, which involves one mandatory pit stop. The only exception to this rule is if wet weather prevents a tire other than the wet or intermediate from being safe to use. In rare circumstances, drivers can change tire compounds without pitting. The only way they can accomplish it is by changing tire compounds during a red flag (which is allowed in the rules).

Pit stops go by in the blink of an eye, as they’re often under two seconds long. Each driver’s pit crew has to be ready to go with the correct set of tyres, sometimes with less than a minute to prepare.

Having a colour-coded tire system allows teams and drivers to know exactly who is on what tire and what tire to put on next. Strategy is an important part of every Formula 1 race, and deciding when to pit and what tire to put on is crucial to a driver’s race strategy.

It also allows the audience to have a deeper understanding of the race by letting them easily see which compound everyone is using. So next time you’re watching a Grand Prix and curious about what kind of tires your favorite driver is using at the moment, try to catch a glimpse of what color marking is on their tires.

Feature Image Credit: Formula 1