Renault has faced troubles with high tyre wear in the recent Formula 1 races, a problem which Nico Hulkenberg says the team is already looking at to find solutions for.
The French outfit were among the teams which faced blistering in Austria, which in fact played a role for them to use the hard compound in the British GP – they were the only team to do so in race distance to combat any degradation.
Interestingly, for this weekend’s German GP, they are the only team to opt for 10 sets of the ultrasoft tyres, as Hulkenberg will have two sets of soft and one medium to Carlos Sainz’s two sets of medium and one soft along with the ultrasoft.
“Maybe at some races that’s true [we have had high degradation], [but] not [at] every race,” said Hulkenberg. “Again, I think it depends a little bit on the track and temperatures. Yes, we had some problems, I think.
“It comes down to how your car is using the tyres and I think there are some cases where our car is quite hard on the tyres and then we pay a price with degradation. We know about it, we try to address it, we work on it, it’s a constant subject.
“I think this weekend here with the temperatures being very hot is going to be a good test for us to see if we’ve made some improvements there.” The team’s Chief Technical Officer Bob Bell added that it will be a challenge in Germany especially with the rear tyres.
“We’ve had different problems at different circuits,” he said. “The problem in Austria wasn’t really tyre wear, but blistering where the rubber underneath the surface almost “boils” and destroys the tyres from the inside out.
“That’s not a normal operating condition in any tyre! For us it will depend on which circuit we’re looking at, Hockenheim will be mainly focused on rear tyres and making sure we keep them in the right operating window, and not letting them get too hot.”
The team did lose out on some points in the recent races but still has a good hold on fourth position with 70 points as Haas, Force India and McLaren are 19, 21 and 22 points respectively, adrift of the French manufacturer.
To keep itself ahead in the game, the team has brought a new front wing for the weekend, which Bell hopes can bring some performance to the car after they get to validate it on-track on Friday in the practice sessions.