Pirelli has expanded their range of tyres for 2018 and has revealed the drives options for the Australian, Bahrain and Chinese Grands Prix.

They launched their expanded tyre range in Abu Dabi which revealed the two new tyre compounds.

This means there will be seven to choose from rather than the original five.

The season will see the new ‘hypersoft and superhard tyres’, both of which will not feature until later on in the racing season.

The names of the tyres were voted for over Pirelli's social media after they launched a poll giving fans the choice of mega, uber and hyper.

The tyres themselves are softer this year, making them the fastest tyres in Formula 1 history.

The line-up is pretty colourful

As usual, teams will have three tyre compounds to choose from for each race.

The Australian Grands Prix, Melbourne, will have the option of the yellow soft, red supersoft and the purple ultra soft tyre compounds.

For Bahrain teams will choose from the white medium tyre, along with the soft and supersoft.

Round three in Shanghai will see the medium, soft and ultrasoft compound tyres as options for the drivers.

The rules and regulations are the same

Formula One World Championship, or F1, for short, is sanctioned by the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) and is the highest class of single-seat motor racing.

In the 2017 racing season, each driver had to save the softest compound tyre for the final ‘Q3’ Qualifying session, the same will happen again this year.

The drivers which don’t qualify in the top 10 will be able to keep the softest tyre for the Grands Prix.

Every driver must have two sets of tyres available on race day, but aside from that, they can choose any other 10 sets of tyres.

This means each driver has 13 sets of rubber for the racing weekend.

The pink hypersoft tyre is the softest tyre that Pirelli have ever made for the race event - it’s better for circuits such as Monaco where ‘maximum mechanical grip’ is required.

Mario Isola, Head of Car Racing at the company acknowledged that their compounds last year were conservative and have addressed the issues in time for this year's season.

The F1 teams and drivers have now started testing out Pirelli's new tyre compounds in their pre-race test in Abu Dhabi.

Renault has set their sights on coming within the top three teams in the pre-season testing.

The first race of 2018 will be on March 25 in Melbourne, Australia.
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