Pirelli has nominated the P Zero Orange hard and P Zero Yellow soft tyres – the same nomination that was made for the first two rounds in Malaysia and Bahrain. The track characteristics of Barcelona take in high lateral energy loadings and potentially warm ambient temperatures, making this the ideal nomination.
Pirelli’s racing manager says:
Mario Isola: “Barcelona is one of the tracks where this is tested to the utmost, as it is a fast and technical track that asks a lot of the tyres, particularly on the left of the car as all the most demanding corners are right-handers. For GP2, we are sticking with the same nomination that we had in Malaysia and Bahrain: in fact Barcelona has a few points in common with these two circuits when it comes to the way that the tyres are used. Degradation is reasonably high, but all the teams have plenty of historical data from Barcelona, which should be useful when it comes to planning a good race strategy. We saw a variety of different strategies at work during the first two races of the year, so we’d expect the same again this weekend.”
The challenge for the tyres:
The most demanding corner of the entire track is Turn 3: a very long right-hander that puts plenty of sustained energy through the tyre. There are 16 corners in total on the 4.655-kilometre track, which first played host to a GP2 round in the debut year of the series: 2005. Barcelona also hosted the very first GP3 race in 2010.
The asphalt in Barcelona is generally quite abrasive. Coupled with ambient temperatures in excess of 25 degrees centigrade expected over the race weekend, this only adds to the amount of tyre wear.
The rear tyres also have to withstand plenty of stress in order to provide the combined traction that is needed coming out of the slower corners in the final sector of the lap.
Every car will have five sets of dry tyres and three sets of wet weather tyres available for the GP2 race weekend.
The five sets of dry tyres comprise three sets of the harder compound (hard) and two sets of the softer compound (soft).
The drivers can use their tyre allocation in any way they like. One set of the hard compound must be returned after free practice.