2017 F1 races will see strategic variety, says Pirelli
Fear that 2017 F1 races will tend to be one-stoppers have been downplayed by Pirelli, with the tire company suggesting that the rapid pace of development will put more stress on tires as the season goes on.
This year’s tires had to be designed on the basis of downforce levels at the end of the season, after extensive development by teams, and as that unfolds the tires will be used much harder.
The ease with which drivers were able to run one-stop strategies in Australia has led to fears that most races this season will see limited strategic options, and hence less potential for action at the front. However Pirelli’s F1 technical boss Mario Isola is confident that the situation will change.
“That’s still our expectation for the second part of the season,” said Isola. “Obviously cars will be quicker, and quicker means more stress on the tires, and therefore more degradation. This is quite a normal relationship between stress on the tires, and degradation. So we will have higher numbers for degradation in the second part of the season, but still in the range of the [FIA] target letter.
“We will have some weekends when we will have two stops. It is not written in stone that we will have all the races with one stop. Obviously if we consider Monaco, I can tell you now we will have one stop!
“If we go to Suzuka, if we go to Spa, if we go to severe circuits, we will have a two-stop race. But I don’t think that one stop means necessarily that we will have a boring race. We had a quite interesting fight in Australia between Sebastian and Lewis.”
Pirelli admits that in Australia degradation was less that the FIA had requested, but Isola is adamant that that the numbers will balance out over the season.
“In Australia degradation was quite low, a big change in behavior compared with last year. This is clearly visible from the lap times. They were able to do a fast lap time with tires that were 10-15 laps old.
“The degradation numbers were set in the target letter, and at the moment we are a bit lower compared to the numbers. The numbers are very precise, and it’s difficult to have exactly that number. For example, the delta lap time [between compounds] in the target letter was 0.9s, but it’s an average, because then you have different circuits with different lengths, with different situations. So it could be 0.7s, it could be 1.1s.”
Meanwhile Pirelli was pleased with the way drivers could push throughout the race in Australia, which was one of the key demands of the FIA.
“We know from these tires that it’s very easy to recover the performance. If I look at the lap times, it appears quite clear. Drivers were able to push hard on tires also with tires that were 10-15 laps old. You can see green lap times with tires that were not new, and this was impossible last year. Last year to have a tire this old making the best lap – I don’t remember a situation like this.
“With these new tires we are not having any graining, we had no blisters, we had a very good surface worn tire.”
