Pirelli: Hembery, “We witnessed a truly exciting race”

Daniel Ricciardo won his second consecutive race, after starting from fifth position on the grid. The Australian driver used a two-stop strategy, completing the first two stints on the P Zero Yellow soft tires before completing the final stint on the P Zero White medium tires.

Ricciardo's victory represents the 50th victory for Red Bull and its third in the last six races. Highlighting in particular the consistency of the medium compound, Ricciardo recorded his best time on the final lap, on the longest circuit in the Championship.

Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, came within three seconds of the Australian, using a completely different strategy. The German driver made three stops: he started on soft tyres, completed the next two stints on the medium compound, and then finished on the soft tyre.

A three-stop strategy was also used by world champion Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull. Like Rosberg, Vettel decided to use the soft compound at the end of the race to increase his race pace and thus chase his closest rivals.
With a difference of 1,6 seconds per lap between the two compounds, the P Zero Yellows added an extra element to the strategy in one of the toughest races of the year.
As a result, there were some really exciting track battles right up to the checkered flag.

Since the weather conditions were better than those seen during free practice, the degradation of both compounds was different from that of recent days.
This led to a wide variety of strategies, depending on how individual drivers used the tyres.

Paul Hembery, Pirelli Motorsport Director: “The ambient and track temperatures were higher than those of recent days, which is why the soft tire lasted a little less than we had expected. But, considering the difficulty of this track, and the nature of the compounds we decided to bring, wear and degradation were limited.
It was interesting to see different strategies, especially with the extra speed given by the soft tyre. In hindsight, many drivers would have liked to use the soft tire for a third pit stop, but yesterday's calculations indicated that two pit stops would have been ideal. However, we witnessed a truly exciting race."