Racing
© Jonathan Borba
Franco Colapinto set the pace and Gabriel Bortoleto logged the most mileage as Pirelli opened its post-Hungarian Grand Prix tyre test at the Hungaroring on Tuesday, using punishing heat to gather data for Formula 1’s 2027 compounds.
Just two days after the grand prix weekend, Alpine, Audi and Aston Martin were back on track for the first of a two-day programme aimed at refining next season’s tyre direction. Colapinto led the times for Alpine with a best lap of 1m20.371s from 128 laps, while Bortoleto completed a test-high 141 laps for Audi and posted a 1m20.813s. Aston Martin reserve Jak Crawford added another substantial workload with 136 laps, although his quickest time, a 1m24.598s, left him well adrift of the other two.
The lap chart only told part of the story. Pirelli’s focus was not on headline speed but on comparison work across several versions of its prospective 2027 range, with Tuesday’s running built mainly around the C3 compound. The three drivers spent much of the day cycling through different evolutions of that tyre before moving into longer stints designed to measure performance and degradation across race-style runs.
Colapinto and Bortoleto also took on a broader brief than Crawford. Alongside the C3 work, both drivers evaluated multiple C4 and C5 variants in a mix of qualifying-style simulations and longer stints, giving Pirelli data from both low-fuel and extended-run conditions. That wider programme helped the tyre supplier compare behaviour across a broader spread of compounds rather than relying on a single baseline.
The conditions made the exercise especially useful. Air temperature reached 30°C and the track climbed to 53°C, creating exactly the kind of demanding environment Pirelli needs when it is trying to understand how new constructions and compounds behave under heavy thermal stress. In those conditions, degradation trends, consistency over a stint and overall balance can become much clearer than they would on a cooler day.
That is why Tuesday’s split between outright pace and total mileage mattered. Colapinto’s quickest lap gave Alpine the fastest reference of the day, but Bortoleto’s heavier lap count meant Audi supplied the largest single bank of running. For a development test built around comparison work and repeatability, both outcomes carried weight.
The programme now moves into its second and final day with only Colapinto and Bortoleto returning to continue similar tyre-development work for Pirelli. Aston Martin will stay at the Hungaroring for a separate filming day with its new Honda engine, a run restricted to 200 kilometres on Pirelli demonstration tyres, while the main 2027 development push continues with Alpine and Audi.