Noses have been lowered and blown diffusers are supposedly out. The results haven’t necessarily been pretty but what is the fundamental effect on the cars and, in particular, how they use the tyres? Pirelli explain…

Pirelli is changing all the slick tyres for the 2012 Formula One World Championship, and introducing a modified version of the wet tyre. Only the intermediate tyre — the Cinturato Green — remains unaltered. Here, Pirelli explain the changes…

Pirelli have released an overview of their season in numbers. For instance, did you realise a total of 24,000 tyres have been used over the season while drivers have made 1111 trips to the pit lane (including penalties) during this year’s races? Incredibly, an estimated 10.2 tonnes of rubber have been deposited on the track in 2011, although great care was taken to recover Sebastian Vettel’s in Abu Dhabi.

How do Pirelli go about allocating tyre compounds for a race weekend? You could be forgiven for thinking they rely on the past choices of the previous tyre supplier but that would assume that Pirelli’s ‘Hard’ tyre is really that similar to Bridgestone’s…

The exhaust has been this Formula One season’s technical talking point, be it Renault’s forward facing exhausts, Exhaust Blown Diffusers or the off-throttle engine maps designed to make best use of them. However, the position of the exhaust can have a secondary benefit in that the hot gases generated can influence the temperature of the rear tyres.

Of course, too much heat can be detrimental to the performance of the tyres and it’s noteworthy that some teams have often run a fence between the tyre and the exhaust, probably in order …

2011 has produced overtaking in volumes unheard of for decades and at the heart of it has been Pirelli’s new tyres and the impact of its life cycle on race strategy. After an initial period of getting the tyres up to an “optimal operating temperature”, during which drivers suffer from a lack of grip leaving them vulnerable to drivers behind them, they then deliver their ideal performance…