Pirelli boss Paul Hembery says Malaysian Grand Prix will
witness greater tyre wear – Formula 1 news
Pirelli boss Paul Hembery has claimed that there will be a lot of tyre wear during the second race of the 2011 Formula 1 season at Sepang in Malaysia.
The event will take place from 8 – 10 April and the track temperature will be a lot higher compared to what the drivers had witnessed at Melbourne in Australia.
Hembery stated, “We were absolutely thrilled by our grand prix debut in Australia, but we're aware that Malaysia should be a very different proposition. We said all along that we would be seeing two to three pit-stops in Australia, but in Malaysia
I think that figure is likely to increase to three to four.”
He further added, “With testing not allowed during the season, this gives us a valuable opportunity to gather more data and feedback, while it also gives the teams an interesting taste of what could be coming in the future.”
The 2010 Formula 1 season was rated as dull by many experts, claiming that there were not a lot of overtaking opportunities during the season. Drivers focussed on the grid position more than anything else as they knew that overtaking was not the easiest
thing on race day.
However, the sport’s governing body, International Automobile Federation (FIA) reacted to this situation by introducing a few interesting regulations. Apart from some rule changes, the FIA also asked Pirelli to produce tyres with higher degradation
rate.
Although this move was meant to make the season more interesting, many teams and drivers criticised it. During the winter testing, teams found out that they would be required to pit more than two times throughout the 2011 season.
Ferrari’s driver Fernando Alonso claimed that this move would make things uncertain for the top teams and the fastest car would not be able to win.
However, things did not turn out to be as bad as expected by different teams and drivers. There were different pit-stop strategies used by the teams during the Australian Grand Prix.
Some drivers including race winner Sebastian Vettel, completed the race with a two-stop strategy while others decided to stop thrice for a tyre change.
To the surprise of many people, rookie driver Sergio Perez completed the race with just one stop. However, it will be interesting to see whether teams can do the same in Malaysia or not.
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