The decisions, Pirelli say, have been made not only based on performance from last season’s races at these next ten venues but also, and most importantly, on data gathered so far this year. While we’re yet to visit these circuits, Pirelli have made fundamental changes to their constructions/range and how each compound relates to the next for this year, making pre-existing data from 2025 vital to informing these decisions.

These changes to the range included the addition of a C6 compound at the softest end of the range which after having been used at Imola, Monaco and Canada so far will only make one further appearance this year in Baku.

Even so, moving the range softer is a trend Pirelli are following for a few of the upcoming races but they’ve also moved harder and even skipped compounds again, as was seen in Spa, at others. Mario Isola, Pirelli’s Motorsport Director, said these choices are “always made with the aim of balancing out the validity of the one or two-stop strategy” and “there is no single solution to achieving this”.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the notable changes to the weekends’ selections.

Netherlands – Round 15

For Zandvoort, Pirelli have moved the selection a step softer than 2024 so the C2 will be the hard, the C3 will be the medium and the C4 will be the soft. Last year, we saw one-stop races from three quarters of the field owing to the longevity of both the medium and hard compounds, which at that point were the C2 and C3. That said, there were two stop races run by drivers like Hamilton and Pirelli will hope that this selection will encourage more drivers to consider that option this year.

Azerbaijan – Round 17

Baku will be the next, and final, round of 2025 to feature the softest C6 compound. Alongside it in the selection will be the C5 as the medium and C4 as the hard, as has been seen every other time the C6 has featured so far this year. It characterises a move softer than last year when the one-stop was the predominant, and winning, strategy.

United States – Round 19

With a familiar selection for Singapore, the next change comes at COTA for the United States Grand Prix where we’ll see the return of compound skipping, once again at the harder end of the selection.

The C1 will be the hard, but the medium and soft will be the C3 and C4, respectively, as they were last season. It’s a choice Pirelli have made after rain meant it was not possible to fully evaluate the impact of compound skipping on strategy.

Mexico City – Round 20

Compound skipping will make a reappearance again for a final time in 2025 at the Mexico City Grand Prix, just one round and one week following COTA. The selection there however will be softer than the United States Grand Prix, and the C2 will be the hard while the C4 will be the medium and C5 will be the soft.

Sao Paulo – Round 21

It’s all change for the three races in the Americas as the selection for Sao Paulo moves a step harder than last year as Pirelli say the C5 was not a viable race tyre there in 2024. That said, the entire grand prix was run on intermediate or extreme wet tyres so it didn’t impact Sunday’s race but Pirelli clearly feel that the data from Saturday’s Sprint, that was run entirely on the medium, is enough to support this move.