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The Pirelli P
Zero Orange hard and P Zero White medium tyres nominated for the United
States Grand Prix faced a variety of weather conditions during the two free
practice sessions in Austin, ranging from fog in the morning to 25 degrees
centigrade in the afternoon.
The quickest driver of the day was Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, who set a
time of 1m37.305s on the medium compound tyres halfway through FP2. His team
mate Mark Webber was second fastest, ahead of the two Mercedes, while Heikki
Kovalainen was quickly up to speed with both Pirelli compounds to set
fifth-fastest time on his debut for Lotus.
The opening free practice session in the morning was delayed by fog and then
cut short because of problems with the medical helicopter. Ferrari’s
Fernando Alonso was quickest on the hard tyre, but with little running in
the morning, the teams had to make the most of the hour and a half of FP2.
With the track still evolving, the teams concentrated on assessing race
performance with different fuel loads on both compounds.
Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery said: “We saw a wide variety of weather
conditions today, but we’re expecting temperatures to climb over the rest of
the weekend, which of course makes it more difficult for the teams when it
comes to predicting tyre behaviour and therefore strategy. In addition, we
saw the track evolving throughout both sessions, with the times getting
progressively faster. Generally, there seems to be more grip than last year,
when the asphalt was brand new. From what we can see so far, we could well
be looking at a one-stop race for most runners, as was the case last year,
although some may try two stops if they feel it offers a speed advantage.
Wear and degradation is where we would expect it to be: the medium tyre will
be the one to qualify on, while we’re seeing very little degradation on the
hard tyre – which is just under a second slower than the medium tyre at the
moment. That’s a big enough gap for strategy to make a difference,
particularly for the drivers who start outside the top 10 and are not
obliged to begin the race with the tyres they qualified on. There’s plenty
of data to analyse tonight, before the teams concentrate on qualifying
simulations during FP3 tomorrow, which is likely to be held in conditions
that are more representative of the race.”
Pirelli fact of the day:
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton is the only active Formula One driver to ever
have won a grand prix in the United States, winning at the Circuit of the
Americas last year and also at Indianapolis in 2007. He’s wearing a helmet
dedicated to his favourite American singer – Michael Jackson – for this
weekend’s grand prix, which he hopes will be a thriller. |
Fastest tyre of the day
FP1: FP2:
1. Alonso 1m38.343s Hard New 1. Vettel 1m37.305s Medium New
2. Button 1m38.371s Hard Used 2. Webber 1m37.420s Medium New
3. Bottas 1m38.388s Hard Used 3. Rosberg 1m37.785s Medium New
Tyre statistics of the day:
Medium Hard Intermediate Wet
kms driven * 1,890 4,365 N/A N/A
sets used overall ** 22 45 N/A N/A
highest number of laps ** 29 34 N/A N/A
May the Force be with you:
- Max. g-force braking (longitudinal force): -4.63 @ T12
- Max. g-force cornering (lateral force): 4.6 @ T17
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