There was an important recognition for Pirelli at the 2025 Autosport Awards evening held in London on 29 January. Autosport is one of the most respected motorsport magazines in the world and, just like Formula 1 itself, it is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Pirelli received the prestigious Pioneering and Innovation Award in recognition of the exceptional innovative value of the use of natural rubber in Formula 1 tyres, certified by the Forest Stewardship Council™. In fact, since the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix, all the tyres used in motor racing's blue riband category have featured the FSC™'s stylised tree logo on the sidewall1.
“The introduction of FSC™ certification of the natural rubber component in Pirelli's Formula 1 tyres, which actually also extends to the Formula 2 and Formula 3 championships, was an important moment in Pirelli's path towards sustainability,” commented Pirelli Motorsport Director Mario Isola. “In 2021, we were the first to equip a road car with FSC™ -certified natural rubber2 and now we can be proud of being the first to do so in the world of racing. For our company, our commitment to the sport provides us an amazing real-world laboratory, that serves not just to experiment with and test new technical solutions and to improve the process of research and development of road tyres, but also to bring together the maximum performance that is a feature of the challenging environment that is motorsport, while increasingly limit the impact on the environment.”
The Autosport Awards jury chose Pirelli from a shortlist that included Google Cloud's record-breaking AI hackathon with Formula E, the 25th year of STEM Racing supported by F1 and WMG, the University of Warwick's slurry-powered racing car and other industry-leading innovations. The judging panel was chaired by James Allen, Chairman of Motorsport Business, and included respected experts including Sam Agini (Financial Times), Kate Beavan (former F1 hospitality director), Mark Mann-Bryans (Autosport's F1 business correspondent), Matthew Marsh (motorsport sponsorship and marketing specialist) and Gerard Neveu (former CEO of the World Endurance Championship).
1 The natural rubber accounts for about 15% of Formula 1 total tyre weight
2 The natural rubber accounts for about 16% in the tyres for the BMW X5 xDrive45e Plug-In Hybrid
