Pirelli to use conservative tyre strategy at unknown Buddh International Circuit – Formula 1 news
Pirelli Motorsport directory Paul Hembery has said that the tyre choices they have made for the Indian Grand Prix has been very selective as the behaviour of the new track is unknown to them.
Pirelli made a return to Formula 1 after Bridgestone decided not to extend their contract for the 2011 season. It has been a good return for Pirelli. They have been praised for their rapidly degrading tyre compounds and raising the quality of races by forcing
the race strategy to be important. In Korea, Pirelli provided both soft and super-soft tyres- an aggressive strategy to improve the overall quality.
In India, though Pirelli feels the unknown is not worth risking and have planned to take caution by going for soft and hard compounds. Hembery spoke about the decision and said, “We've opted for a deliberately conservative nomination in selecting the hard
tyre alongside the soft, simply because on a brand new circuit you are never quite sure of the exact race conditions you will encounter.”
“But we've structured the allocation in such a way that we think the teams will run more on the softer tyres, particularly because we are bringing an extra set of soft compound tyres for Friday,” he further added.
He felt that the soft and hard compound combination will enable Pirelli to analyse the optimal two compounds needed for the 2012 race at the Buddh International Circuit, but as far as this season goes, any strategy they use is still going to be unknown.
“This will help us to make some decisions about our strategy for next year, particularly after we saw the excellent durability of the softer compounds; we anticipate a reasonably significant lap time difference between the two compounds,” he added further.
Hembery further explained that the lap time difference between hard and soft tyres will be a significant one, around 2 seconds each lap and expects the teams to use the hard tyres as conservatively as possible. He felt that the temperatures will be less
than 40 degrees during the weekend and that should not be very bad.
It will be interesting to see how the tyres perform. The drivers will start to get a feel of it as soon as October 28 which will be the first practice day of the inaugural Indian Grand Prix.
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