By Carlo Platella
Max Verstappen will start from pole position in Australia, for a Grand Prix towards which Red Bull shows less optimism than usual. Ferrari, thanks to the good race pace expressed in free practice, will try to put pressure on Carlos Sainz, undermining the world champions who instead suffered more from graining. The softest compounds brought by Pirelli outline a two-stop race with several opportunities, as the Chief Engineer illustrates Simone Berra.
Engineer Berra, what are the most probable scenarios for the tender?
“Compared to what we saw in free practice, we don't think a single stop is possible. Wear is particularly high. We mainly collected data on the medium tires in long runs, but the wear found and that expected with the harder compound do not allow for a single pit stop. We believe that the double stop is the only possible option, also considering that all the teams have kept the two sets of hard tires for the race. We expect the most common strategy to be to mount the medium tyres at the start to take advantage of the extra grip, and then do two stints on the hard tyres. We expect the first stop between the 14th and 20th laps, while the second will take place between the 33rd and 39th laps.”
“Another option is the permutation of the first strategy, so starting on the hard, switching to the medium in the second stint and then returning to the hard at the end. In this case, the first stop would take place between the 19th and 25th laps, while the second would again be between the 33rd and 39th laps. This strategy could be chosen by those who start a little further back, to try to go longer in the first part of the race, fitting a harder tire that is more resistant to graining when they still have a lot of fuel on board”.
“The third possibility, which we honestly believe is not very feasible, is to start with the soft tyre, and then run the second and third stages of the race on the hard tyres. In this case the first stop would be brought forward a little on the 9th – 15th lap, while the second would be on the 32nd – 38th lap. However, we expect that everyone will use the two sets of hard tyres.”
Will the limiting factor in the race be tire degradation or another wear phenomenon?
“Graining is the great protagonist of this Grand Prix, as we already expected on the eve of it. The track is particularly sensitive to graining on the tires, especially the front and rear left side. On the soft and medium tires in recent days we have seen graining of particularly high severity. We don't expect a big improvement due to the evolution of the track. Even today we saw an average race simulation from Red Bull, without an improvement compared to the previous day. So even the more rubberized track didn't help.”
“It's a bit of a peculiarity of Melbourne, due to its design and asphalt characteristics. We expect some graining even on the harder compound, which will therefore need to be managed. Race pace management in the graining phases will be crucial. The teams that are best at keeping the tire alive during race stints and getting through the graining phases will obviously benefit from this in the end.”
On Saturday Red Bull fitted a flatter rear wing. Does this choice risk complicating graining management?
“On paper it's like this, you're definitely going to suffer a little more from slipping. In Melbourne, however, the graining is high not so much due to the lack of grip, but due to the characteristics of the track. There are many high-speed corners and the asphalt is quite smooth. Therefore, the tire is put under a lot of stress, entering the so-called grip limited zones, requiring maximum grip from the tyre. In these phases the rubber tends to reach its breaking load, tear and generate graining. Having more downforce obviously helps, but it doesn't make a substantial difference on what will be quite short stints, given that we will be doing two stops.”
“Red Bull's reasoning was probably precisely on this: on such a short stint, if you lose the aerodynamics you don't waste too much more time with graining. Perhaps Red Bull was expecting a game based on attack rather than defense. After free practice they were a little behind and made a lot of corrections to the set-up. Maybe they didn't expect to be in pole position. Tomorrow, however, it will be difficult to overtake them, given their top speed.”
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