The arrival of Pirelli in the Formula One circus forced the teams to carry out some studies on the behavior of the tires in different racing situations. Compared to what happened with the Bridgestone, the compounds are once again a determining factor and as we have seen with the Lotus, sometimes a controlled consumption of your tires can decide in the positive even entire race weekends. Mercedes, during the European GPs, with the aim of reducing its thermal consumption, introduced a new type of inner lining of the rims, something new that had never been used in the Formula One circus. This novelty was soon copied by some teams (Red Bull above all) since in many cars it can be seen that the inside of the rims appear knurled. After some studies, the nature of that knurling has finally been discovered: we are talking about the Polysil, a silicon-based coating that allows the protection of the surface structure of the rim. Resistant up to 1100 degrees, Polysil is a material that only producesNanopromand it is a liquid glass coating with an opaque black pigment.
For sailing and sea experts it is a material widely used as a lining in boat hulls. It is mainly used to improve thermal conductivity, with truly incredible resistance to abrasion and hardness (in the various hardness tests the surfaces coated with Polysil resist up to 6H). In addition to these significant advantages, this new coating is very light given that it weighs 95% of a normal paint (a normal paint of a rim weighs from 65 to 85 grams, while with Polysil you can also reach weights of just 5 grams). To further improve its characteristics, some teams wet this detail with water in order to simulate the characteristics of mercury. The teams also found a noticeable improvement in turbulence as the CFD saw a three-point improvement in final results. We are faced with yet another technological innovation and it will be interesting to find out how the teams will be able to evolve this new type of coating even on the outside of the rim itself.

[Source: Formula One Italia]