McLaren admit "wrong" tyre selection in Japan

McLaren has admitted that they made the "wrong" choice in their tyre selection in Suzuka, but insisted it was a deliberate choice.

The side picked four sets of medium tyres for both cars - twice as many as any other team on the grid.

They also picked the same number of super-softs which is the lowest out of any team.

In an interview with RaceFans, sporting director of McLaren, Gil de Ferran explained the team's confusing decision...

"There was a general understanding that our car was working better with harder compounds," de Ferran said. "Particularly on this type of track with very high Gs and a lot of sequences of corners (we thought) it would be a more suitable choice.

There had been speculation that McLaren failed to submit its selection in time and had been automatically assigned tyres by the FIA, but de Ferran rejects those rumours.

"It was a deliberate selection," he added. "It was not - I read something in the press - that we forgot maybe the choice and therefore got a default choice from Pirelli, that's not true."