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FRIDAY TYRE SUMMARY
* Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton dominated qualifying for the Brazilian
Grand Prix, which determines the grid for Sprint Qualifying tomorrow.
However, Hamilton faces a five-place grid penalty for the race on Sunday
following an engine change. The Englishman also went fastest in FP1 earlier
today – as he did in every qualifying session – on the P Zero Red soft tyre.
* As per the Sprint Qualifying regulations, all the drivers had to use the
soft compound from start to finish during Friday’s qualifying session. For
the 24-lap Sprint Qualifying race tomorrow they can use whichever compound
they prefer, and they are also allowed to start Sunday’s grand prix on any
of the three compounds nominated this weekend.
* For being the fastest qualifier, Hamilton received the Pirelli Speed King
award, which replaces the Pirelli Pole Position Award at races with Sprint
Qualifying.
* Conditions remained mild but dry during the crucial hour-long session,
although there were some drops of rain between FP1 and qualifying. The
latter session got underway in temperatures of 16 degrees ambient and 24
degrees on track: nearly 10 degrees cooler than the track temperature seen
in FP1 earlier.
* Today the P Zero White hard tyres and P Zero Yellow mediums could only be
used during FP1, while just the soft was run in qualifying. The high degree
of track evolution made it a bit harder than usual to accurately assess the
performance gaps between the compounds. So far there’s an estimated gap of
around 0.4 seconds between the hard and P Zero Yellow medium, and 0.3
seconds between the medium and soft. These will need to be confirmed
tomorrow, as today suggests that these gaps could alter.
MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF CAR RACING
“We saw a lot of track evolution throughout FP1 and also qualifying today.
The quite cool conditions on a slippery track also led to a bit of sliding
and consequent light abrasion, especially in free practice. Compared to
qualifying at previous Brazilian grands prix, today was a different
strategic challenge, with all the drivers having to run the soft tyre from
start to finish under the sprint qualifying rules, which also use a
different tyre allocation compared to conventional weekends. As is often the
case, the weather looks set to remain somewhat unpredictable at Interlagos
for the rest of the weekend, which will be a decisive factor when the teams
come to consider which tyres they will run in Sprint Qualifying and the
race. Tomorrow’s final free practice session will provide yet more valuable
information on tyres ahead of the racing action, before the teams finalise
the strategy – which seems likely to revolve around the medium and the
hard.” |
