As soon as the mud settles from a chaotic System 1 qualifying session, the driving force on pole will get bragging rights over the remainder of the sector and a small tyre that is introduced by Pirelli. However what’s the tiny tyre, why is it handed out and what occurs to it as soon as the driving force on pole has posed with it in parc ferme?
The tyre in query is Pirelli’s Pole Place award, which is a relative newcomer to the world of F1 trophies. In keeping with the Italian tyre producer, the concept for the award took place in testing forward of the 2018 marketing campaign, and it made its debut at that 12 months’s Australian Grand Prix – with Lewis Hamilton taking house the very first one for setting the quickest lap in qualifying for the opening spherical.
The awards are constituted of a reproduction of Pirelli’s wind tunnel tyres, that are made by F1’s provider for groups to make use of in assessments of their automobiles and elements. The tyre is due to this fact a 60% scaled down duplicate of an actual F1 tyre – measuring 330mm in diameter.
To show the tyre from a testing instrument to a trophy, it is handed over to Pirelli’s facility in Milan, the place groups who would usually engrave experimental tread patterns into new tyres set to work. The trophies are engraved with each the F1 and Pirelli logos, in addition to a map of the circuit it will likely be awarded at.
The trophy is then packaged up and brought to the circuit by a member of the Pirelli group of their hand baggage to each race. On the conclusion of qualifying, the tiny tyre is signed and handed over to the quickest driver. As soon as the presentation ceremony is over, it’s packaged up and personally handed to the driving force’s group by Pirelli.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Picture by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Photos by way of Getty Photos
For George Russell, who took pole on the 2025 Singapore Grand Prix, the Pole Place Award has been taken again to Brackley and displayed within the reception of the Mercedes F1 group’s manufacturing facility.
Pirelli studies that for different groups, the trophies generally go house with the drivers or have usually been donated to museums all over the world – others have additionally been auctioned off for charity.
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