It's all smiles at Pirelli where, after three seasons in which it took a beating from both the teams and media, the Italian company has deliberately taken a more conservative approach.

Indeed the tyre manufacturer has hardly rated a mention up to this point in the season as focus shifts to the new engine formula and associated reliability concerns.

"The important thing this year for the sport is the power train," explains Pirelli's motor sport boss Paul Hembery. "It's an important change, and an interesting one, a very big technical challenge and it is quite right that this is the main focus."

Instead Pirelli has its work cut out trying to anticipate the performance of the cars at the end of the season. With a frantic development race expected downforce levels are expected to increase dramatically as the year wears on, placing greater strain on the tyres - what seems conservative now could prove rather different by the time we reach Abu Dhabi in November. "The development pace is something we have to be aware of," Hembery admitted. "We're told it's likely to be double the normal level.

"That's like going from GP2 to F1 and has a big impact on tyres," he continued. "Most of that performance, you would imagine, will come from cornering, so we're conscious of that. It means we've got to keep pushing to get the right data from the teams to know when those jumps are coming.

"You might see sometimes our choices this season are a little bit conservative but we've also got to try and think of where we might be in six months' time. Then it might be less conservative."

For teams and drivers the challenge will be managing the tyres on cars capable of spinning their wheels in sixth gear. A more conservative approach from Pirelli should enable drivers to lean on the tyres more, but how the drivers use their tyres while saving fuel is another question.

"How that transpires in to race pace, which this year is going to be, certainly at the start of the year, is the big challenge," said Hembery. "That's something we don't fully understand the impact of yet."

Switching the tyres on straight out of the pits has not proved a problem but generating heat in to the tyres after they've been allowed to cool, as is expected to happen as drivers back off or if there is a safety car, has proved more difficult. Back off too far and drivers may struggle to keep the tyres performing well, but if they fail to back off enough they may run out of fuel before the end of the race.

"There's this complex conundrum that I'm sure will provide some interesting scenarios as we go in to the season," he concluded.

Check out our Qualifying gallery, here.

Mat Coch