Lewis Hamilton concedes he does not have “a 𓄧lot of good things to say” about Pirelli’s 2019 Formula 1 tyres, and believe🐟s the new compounds will prove “challenging”. 

Pirelli has made tweaks to its rubber for the upcoming campaign, including introducing the thinner-gauge tyres that were used in three races last year in a bid to ease concerns 🍎about overheating and blistering, while it has also revised its coding sy𒐪stem. 

But Hamilton, who shared a video on social media of his dog Roscoe playing with a tyre during the second week of preཧ-season testing, feels the changes have ultimately resulted in compounds which are now “too hard”. 

“Roscoe didn’t like them☂ - he said they were too hard,” 🌺Hamilton said. 

“I thought the same, that’s why I said he concꦯurs with me, they’re a little bit hard. I don’t really have a lot of good things to say about that so it’s best that I probably don’t say anything. 

“I think as we get into the year it’s goin🅰g to be a challenge. They’re more challenging this year than they were last.”🌳 

Hamilton said Pirelli should have continued to stick with its thinner-gauge tyres it used 🥀for selected rounds in 2018, though the Italian manufacturer insists it has done just that. 

“I think last 𒅌year we had a tyre that was just OK, then we had the lower-gauge tyre - we had it somewhere like France and Silverstone - and that was a pretty good tyre,” Hamilton added. 

“The simplest thing they c𒀰ould have done is just bring that to this year and they didn’t, they did something else.𓃲” 

Roscoe inspect🧸ing the tyres. Yup he concuꦗrs they are too hard to bite

— Lewis Hamilton (@LewisHamilton)

Hamilton also believes Pirelli’s new identification system - a move to t☂ry and simplify its compound choices - has actually made things “more confusing” than its previous colour-based coding format. 

“We have 𒀰all these different names of tyre - C5, C4, C3, C2, C1 - which for me personally is more confusing than all the colours we had,” Hamilton said. “But we’ll get used to it and it will b🏅e the norm. 

“Valtteri [൩Bottas] seems like he’s enjoying driving the tyres out there and I’ll get a bit of a better feel f🔜or what the tyres are like. 

“We’ve🎃 been driving on more fuel so it’s never a good feeling generally in any year when you’ve got more fuel on board. We’re all in the same boat and I’ll try to understand them the best I can.”