Spanish GP: Pirelli Friday Practice Review

Mercedes topped the time sheets ahead of Ferrari and Red Bull during the two free practice sessions today, both on the medium and the soft tyres. The hard and the medium tyres only were used during FP1, with the teams then moving onto the soft tyres in the more representative conditions of FP2. Although yesterday was affected by rain, washing the surface clean of rubber that had been laid down before, conditions were dry and warm today, with FP2 finishing in 27 degrees ambient and 42 degrees on track.

Much more than 1.5 seconds has been seen so far between the medium and soft tyres, but track conditions were slower in the afternoon than the morning, mainly due to variable gusts of wind: a well-known phenomenon in Barcelona. This meant that the actual performance gap was difficult to assess. As usual, the surface was ‘green’ and slippery in the morning, but is still evolving with more rubber being laid down.

MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF CAR RACING
“The quite strong and variable gusts of wind have made it tricky for the teams to set consistent times during FP2; added to the interruption with the red flag towards the end that stopped the long runs, it hasn’t been easy to put together some reliable data so far. However, we’ve seen a gap of about 1.8 seconds between the hard and medium in FP1, and there is expected to be an eventual performance gap of more than 1.5 seconds between medium and soft. These two will be the race tyres, and as expected we’ve seen some degradation on both. Understanding this more precisely will be the key to the race strategy.”

FREE PRACTICE 1 – TOP 3 TIMES
DRIVER 		TIME 		COMPOUND 
Hamilton 	1m21.521s 	MEDIUM NEW
Bottas		1m21.550s	MEDIUM NEW
Raikkonen 	1m22.456s 	MEDIUM NEW

FREE PRACTICE 2 – TOP 3 TIMES
DRIVER 		TIME 		COMPOUND 
Hamilton 	1m20.802s 	SOFT NEW
Bottas		1m20.892s	SOFT NEW
Raikkonen 	1m21.112s 	SOFT NEW

FP1 - BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
COMPOUND 	DRIVER 		TIME
HARD 		Hamilton 	1m 23.531s
MEDIUM		Hamilton	1m 21.521s

FP2 - BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
COMPOUND 	DRIVER 		TIME
MEDIUM		Bottas		1m 23.062s
SOFT 		Hamilton 	1m 20.802s

MOST LAPS BY COMPOUND SO FAR
COMPOUND 	DRIVER 		LAPS
HARD 		Ocon 		14
MEDIUM		Massa		26
SOFT 		Bottas 		28

TYRE STATISTICS OF THE DAY
			HARD	MEDIUM	SOFT
Kms driven* 		879 	2625 	1778
Sets used overall**	24	39	20

* The above number gives the total amount of kilometres
driven in FP1 and FP2 today, all drivers combined.
** Per compound, all drivers combined.