Paul Hembery says soft and medium Pirelli tyres did not pay off in Valencia – Formula 1
Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery has stated that the call for using soft and medium compounds in the Valencia Grand Prix of the 2011 Formula 1 season was not a wise one.
Hembery said that as there were lot of overtaking moves in GP2 and GP3 races in Valencia so Pirelli thought of using the same type of rubber for the Formula 1 cars which did not pay off as not a lot of overtaking was witnessed.
The Pirelli medium compound was rarely used by any team as the rubber was giving two seconds less in speed than the soft tyres.
Hembery stated, “From our point of view probably the conservative choice of medium did not help. If we had gone the super soft route - it would not have worked tremendously well here because it is far too hot for it – but people would have had to use it
in qualifying and, if they had just got eight laps out of it, it would have pushed people harder on the soft, perhaps to the limit.”
Hembery stated that with more pit-stops, teams would have had more chances to overtake each other and that would have made Valencia a spectacle but it did not turn out to be the case.
Hembery added that the race was altogether a boring one as the last seven races of the 2011 season saw more overtaking moves than previous few seasons collectively.
Hembery also added that the Drag Reduction System was also not working properly in Valencia and not a lot of overtaking was seen on the circuit.
“Having the super soft may well have created a slightly more interesting race, but I have doubts with the overtaking zones that it would not have changed a huge amount. It certainly would not have been as exciting as some of the other races we have seen,”
commented Hembery.
The Valencia race saw only a few overtaking battles being taken out successfully. Other than that, the race was somewhat like the 2010 season one.
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