The new Pirelli tyres are being tipped as the most influential factor in improving racing ahead of the upcoming season.
The Italian tyre firm has set out to produce tyres with higher degradation and more variation between compounds in order to mix up strategies and improve the show. And while there are still doubts about the role of the new moveable rear wings and return of KERS in improving the spectacle, the Pirellis appear to be having the desired effect.
"Nothing else will contribute more to overtaking," Ferrari's Fernando Alonso told Diario Sport, "because when you put on new tyres you can be up to six seconds faster than the ones who have not yet changed."
Red Bull's Mark Webber agrees, but questions whether it will automatically make grands prix more exciting.
"I think there will be more overtaking," he told Auto Motor und Sport. "With different strategies there will be greater speed differentials between the cars. But sometimes it will be a car passing easily and disappearing, so I don't know how spectacular that will be."
McLaren's managing director Jonathan Neale believes tyre management will add a whole new dimension to racing in this season.
"I think that's where the tyres will help," he said. "Because when you've got tyres with really high tyre wear and somebody comes out on the circuit and is two seconds a lap quicker just through new tyres, never mind the devices ... I think the spectacle is coming."
And Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery has dismissed speculation that the durability of the new tyres is so extreme that some drivers will need to make five pit stops per race.
"No, I think three will be the maximum," he told El Pais newspaper, "and in most cases two."
Hembery also said the degradation has been severe at the Spanish test tracks due to low temperatures and poor surface grip.
"When we go to circuits with higher temperatures and with more rubber on the track, the performance of both the hard and the soft compounds will improve dramatically," he said.
Meanwhile, as far as the championship fight is concerned, Alonso warned observers not to expect more wheel-to-wheel racing in 2011.
"From what I've experienced," he told EFE news agency, "I believe there will be a chance of more overtaking, but not at every corner. It may be easier to overtake slower cars, but between the four cars out in front the difficulty will be the same as before."
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