Today, all eyes were looking at tyres. Everybody was expecting to see if really problems have been solved. And no problem has appeared, but certainly there is a circuit where tyres haven’t a high work load, so it was predictable that nothing was going to happen. Both practice sessions were held in dry weather conditions (something that did not happen in last two Grand Prixs). Ambient maximum temperature was 20 degrees centigrade in FP2, with track temperature of 28 degrees centigrade. Pirelli also told FIA the values of camber and pressures that must be used for tyres to work properly.
In the morning, the teams used the medium compound only, and we did not see the soft compound until FP2. At the end of that session, teams concentrated on long runs as part of their race simulations, and there has not been a notable wearing of the tyres, so the strategy this Sunday can be 2 stops or maybe 1 if someone is brave enough to try it.
Paul Hembery: “The drivers got the chance to assess both the compounds today with the new construction. It was a successful session and most teams got plenty of work done, which puts them in a strong position going into qualifying and the race. We’ve seen quite high levels of degradation from the soft compound but it is a very quick tyre and it should be the selected qualifying tyre tomorrow with the main race tyre being the medium tyre. The performance gap between the two compounds is around 1.5s and we are expecting now with what we have seen two pit stops in Sunday’s race.”
A new rumour today is that Pirelli will test 2014’s tyres before Hungary Grand Prix, at Paul Ricard and Barcelona. The driver of this test would be Jaime Alguersuari.
