MARIO ISOLA – PIRELLI DIRECTOR OF MOTORSPORT
“A very busy Saturday as is always the case on a Sprint weekend. From the short race, we were able to gather plenty of useful information on how the Medium tyre, used by the great majority of drivers, behaved. Degradation was a factor, obviously as this track is very hard on tyres, but it definitely wasn’t dramatic, especially as there was no graining, something we had already realised in yesterday’s free practice.
“As for strategy, the first thing to take into consideration is that the forecast is for a high chance of rain. Therefore the hypothetical scenarios are many, in every sense of the word. If it’s a dry race with track temperatures significantly lower than today’s or yesterday’s, the Soft and Medium compounds will be the most competitive. As there is not that big a difference between a one-stop and a two-stop, any combination of Soft and Medium is possible. That doesn’t mean the decision to bring a very hard Hard here was a mistake: if we had kept the same trio as last year, the one-stop would have been significantly quicker. One must also bear in mind that overtaking at this track is not that easy, as could be seen in all today’s Sprint races, in F1, F2 and F3, when trains of cars were formed despite or indeed because of the DRS. This means that the start, and especially the first sector on the opening lap, should make the difference and slipstreaming could play an important role.
“If the race starts in the dry, but with the threat of rain, one can easily imagine the Medium would be the favourite compound so as to have greater flexibility in managing the moment to switch to rain tyres or to extend the first stint as much as possible.”
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