Pirelli: 'Different strategies will make for lively starts'

Pirelli has had a rough patch since Baku, but despite that, there is still racing going on. In Austria, the tyre supplier also saw that it was extremely hot and that the differences were very small.

Mario Isola, head of F1 and car racing, said on the Pirelli site. "In qualifying, we had the warmest temperatures of the weekend so far, but the margins were very small and there were variations in strategy, which means that the top two and Bottas will start on the medium tyre, while the rest of the top 10 will be on the soft tyre." Partly because of this, Isola expects a fun start to the race.

"This will make for a lively start tomorrow, and it will also be interesting to see if Red Bull are able to take advantage of a split strategy with their two cars. Thunderstorms are forecast for tomorrow, which could have a decisive impact on the action. For the rest, we expect a one-stop race, with a few different possible approaches."

Rain or no rain?

That's the big question for this afternoon. At the moment the chances seem to be around 25% that we're going to see rain at the Austrian GP, which is a lot less than previously expected. It remains to be seen if the strategy that Pirelli has come up with for dry weather can be implemented by the teams.

Pirelli thinks at this moment that the soft-medium combination will be the fastest. The tyre supplier thinks that the drivers who start on softs will have an advantage during the race.