Felipe Massa claims new medium compound is similar to hard compound of 2011 Formula 1 season
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa has said that the new medium compound tyres Pirelli is hoping to introduce at the European Grand Prix are pretty much like the hard compound tyres which were used earlier on in the 2011 Formula 1 season.
The new tyres introduced by Pirelli have been working pretty well for the teams up until now as they degrade much quicker than the Bridgestones of 2010 as a result of which the performance of the tyres in terms of grip and speed enhances with due time.
However, the degradation rate for each compound is different as the harder compounds last for around 20-25 laps while the softer tyres last for around 15-20 laps. The medium compound on the other hand has not been tested by most of the drivers but Massa
claims that since he tested the tyres during the winter test sessions, he found them colder back then which was probably because of the weather.
“I drove with the Medium in winter testing. But it was much colder then, which means it behaved very differently and a couple of weeks ago, in Montreal, we were given the opportunity to evaluate it quickly during free practice, but the Canadian track surface
is very different to the one in Valencia,” he said.
He added that the characteristics of the medium compound are quite similar to the original hard compound introduced by Pirelli which was changed after a few races and made even harder so that they last longer.
With these new medium tyres, the strategic factor of racing is going to be affected noticeably once again as the teams will now have another choice of tyres in their list during the race.
Other than that, the Brazilian driver stated that the circuit in Valencia is quite different from the rest of the circuits and in order to get the best performance out of his car, the team has been working pretty hard as they are trying to figure out the
best possible settings for the medium compound as well.
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