MILAN, Italy — Pirelli Tyre will be the first company to produce a complete range of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified tires for motorsports.
Starting this year, all of the tires used in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship will be marked with the FSC logo, signifying that the natural rubber used to make the tires "complies with stringent environmental and social criteria required by the FSC, the world-leading non-governmental organization for sustainable forestry," Pirelli said.
Pirelli will supply Formula 1 until at least 2027. The certification, announced when Pirelli renewed its agreement with F1 in 2023, will apply to all the tires used on track, throughout the season, including pre-season testing.
"The debut of our FSC-certified tires in the world of motorsport represents a significant moment in Pirelli's sustainability journey. In 2021, we were first to equip a road car with FSC-certified tires, and now we are proud to be the first do so in motorsport as well," Giovanni Tronchetti Provera, executive vice president motorsport, sustainability and future mobility, said.
"Formula 1 is an extraordinary open-air laboratory for us. It allows us not only to design and test new technology as well as improve research and development processes for roadgoing tires, but also to unite maximum performance, typical of the demanding motorsport environment, with commitment towards an increasingly sustainable world."
The FSC-certified tires have been introduced following a development program started in 2022, "which showed clear results in terms of both reliability and performance," Pirelli said.
The tires debuted Feb. 29 at the first free practice sessions at the Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2024.
"Formula 1 is proud to collaborate with Pirelli on sustainability topics at every level, as the introduction of FSC-certified tires shows," Ellen Jones, Formula 1 head of ESG, said.
"This is an important and positive step forward, as well as another example of how our partners are demonstrating their commitment to sustainable practices as we continue our mission towards Net Zero by 2030."
The FSC certification is one of a number of initiatives Pirelli has put in place for motorsport in recent years. Others include:
- all the tires that Pirelli brings to the track during a Grand Prix weekend — used in F1, F2, F3 and F1 Academy races — will be turned into secondary raw materials after use, for multiple circular uses;
- the electrical energy used to make the tires comes exclusively from 100% renewable certified sources;
- the use of "virtual" design technology for all tires reduces development time and the number of physical prototypes needed, cutting down on materials used;
- the elimination of tire warmers in Formula 1 for full wet covers reduces the use of electrical energy; and
- more streamlined logistics cuts down on logistics emissions.
"Pirelli's implementation of FSC-certified tires in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship is a strong statement of the company's commitment to sustainability — not just to its own targets but also in its alignment with the goals of the FIA's Environmental Strategy, which seeks to reduce motorsport impact and reinforce the sport as a catalyst for sustainable innovation and technology," Sara Mariani, FIA sustainability and D&I director, said.
"Those ambitions were fundamental to the Formula 1 tire supply tender launched last year by the FIA for 2025 and beyond and following its successful bid Pirelli has admirably already begun to innovate in pursuit of even greater sustainability with the introduction of FSC-certified tires in 2024."
