Pirelli, Paul Hembery: “We expect a very close race”

The combination of Pirelli P Zero Silver hard and P Zero Yellow soft tires will take to the track for the last time this season, in this weekend's Indian Grand Prix: one of the fastest and most spectacular circuits on the Formula One calendar, where nine of the ten corners between 5 and 14 are taken between 200 and 250 km/h.

Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel set the fastest free practice time: 1m26.22s on soft compound tires in FP2, a tenth of a second faster than his teammate Mark Webber. Vettel also dominated last year's Indian Grand Prix, where he won the race from pole and set the fastest time.

This year's Pirelli compounds are all softer than last season's equivalents. Therefore, as usual, the teams dedicated the two free practice sessions on Friday to collecting as much data relating to tire performance, with different fuel loads and different set-ups, in order to best prepare the competition strategies.

All drivers ran on hard tires in the morning – Vettel was once again three-tenths of a second faster – before switching to softs in the second half of FP2 in the afternoon, run in 38 degree track temperatures. Caterham driver Vitaly Petrov and Toro Rosso driver Daniel Ricciardo were the first to switch to soft tires with 50 minutes remaining in the session. Subsequently, the other drivers also followed suit, fitting the soft tires to complete long runs with a full load of fuel, simulating the scenario that the frontrunners can expect at the start of the race. Force India driver Paul di Resta finished FP2 on hard tires in what is his team's home race, as did Michael Schumacher, Mercedes, and Jean-Eric Vergne, Toro Rosso.

In India, a difference between the soft tires and the hard tires is expected to be between 0,8 and one second per lap, but the situation is made more complicated by the high degree of evolution of the track over the course of the weekend. During FP1 for example, some drivers improved their times by up to a second per lap as the session progressed, while Vettel set the fastest time (1m27.619s) in the final five minutes on the hard tire .

The comment from Paul Hembery, Pirelli Motorsport Director: “With a significant performance gap between the two compounds and a rapidly evolving track, the teams have the opportunity to use these performance differences to define their race strategies, which will certainly have an important role at the weekend. As always, to get the best out of the tyres, drivers need to maintain the right operating temperature. Last year the winning strategy was two pit stops but, from what we've seen so far, this year some drivers might even try a one-stop strategy. Both Red Bull drivers have shown good race pace so far, but the right combination of speed and strategy will be crucial to winning the Grand Prix. We also don't know exactly how much fuel the teams will race with. With the tires responding very well to the demands of the Indian circuit, we expect a very close race."

The Pirelli numbers of the day:

Sets used in total:
Hard: 48
Soft: 24
Intermediate: 0
Wet: 0

Longest runs per compound:
Hard: 19 (Kobayashi)
Soft: 23 (Raikkonen)
Intermediate: 0
Wet: 0

Pirelli fact of the day:

If Sebastian Vettel were to win the Indian GP this weekend, he would set a new personal record: the German driver has never won four races in a row so far. His career currently boasts 25 victories (15 of which with Pirelli tyres), which puts him in seventh place in the all-time winners' list on a par with Niki Lauda and Jim Clark. But, if to beat Alberto Ascari's record, seven consecutive victories with Pirelli tires achieved in the years 1952-1953, there is still some way to go.