F1 News

Tyres behave differently than Pirelli expected: "The gap is bigger"

16 April 2021 at 18:23
Last update 16 April 2021 at 18:37
1
  • GPblog.com

Because they have recently driven at the circuit of Imola, and also in very similar cars, there will be no surprises for most teams this weekend. What can confuse matters, however, are the tires.

Pirelli had estimated before the weekend that the track temperature would be slightly colder than it ended up being on Friday. The manufacturer said in their own retrospective on the free practices. Because of this, the hard tire needs relatively less time to warm up and eventually offers more grip. The hard tire is therefore about half a second slower than the medium.

Soft tyre quicker than expected

The higher temperatures also have an influence on the soft tire. The soft tire is less prone to graining, even during qualifying laps. The soft tire is therefore about 0,7 seconds faster than the medium one. This gap is larger than expected according to Pirelli.

"The gap between the compounds is lower than expected between hard and medium and higher than expected between medium and soft, although the difference can vary from team to team. This will naturally influence strategies”, says Pirelli's Mario Isola.