That´s what Baumschlager said.
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I thought this is a new tyre using old existing tread. You think it's the very same one just "forced" on the wider rim? That certainly is a risk for punctures and it brings a question if it was a brilliant idea from Pirelli or if they brought the tyres simply because they didn't have any others... and it surprisingly worked much better than dedicated tyres from Michelin... :)
imho Baunschlager played safe for his aim - the Austrian championship, while it looked some kind of gamble for the others. Kajto tested both on shakedown/qs and decided this is good enough, well surprisingly more than good actually:). At first might look as vulnerability, but obviously the internal pressure appeared quite enough to avoid troubles.
http://www.brr.at/cms/fileadmin/doc/...relli_2014.pdf
Maybe there were some limited tyrestock already quite near..
It's same tire, it's designed to fit narrow rim, designed to fwd cars, in Europe available with short and long studs, same pattern, etc like 16 inch, just downsized.
They look strange when fitted on wider rim, there is high risk of it going off "inside" the rim, especially if there is a lot of tarmac or you've got ruts in snow/ice