Pirelli: Hembery, “We foresee two or three-stop strategies”

The weather will have a major influence on tire behavior throughout the Chinese Grand Prix weekend. Today's free practice was characterized by fairly low temperatures (12 degrees in the room during FP1 and 15 on the track) and rain is expected for the race.

As a result, drivers today had to be sure to warm up the tires correctly, in order to get good performance from the tires and avoid graining.

Generally. to heat the compound the driver must gradually transfer more heat and energy to the tire during the lap, to ensure that the compound interacts with the asphalt thus generating grip.

Graining occurs when the tire slides on the asphalt instead of adhering to it, causing wear waves on the tread surface.

Graining phenomena were felt by some drivers during free practice, but they remained within the expected limits.

Paul Hembery, Pirelli Motorsport Director: “We saw a fairly significant gap between the two compounds: between 1,4 seconds and 1,8 seconds depending on the team. However, free practice took place in exceptional conditions, with temperatures much lower than expected; and with rain forecast for tomorrow, the weather will obviously remain a major factor this weekend.

There was some graining, but no more than we would expect at these temperatures.

We will analyze all the data this evening but, as of today, we expect stints of 20 laps for the softs and 25 for the mediums.

Degradation on the medium tires is about half of what we are seeing with the soft tyres: in terms of performance, the medium loses around 0,15 seconds per lap in race trim, while the soft tire loses around 0,3 seconds per lap. tour.

From the data accumulated, we predict two or three pit stops for Sunday's race."