In Brazil, for the third and last time this season, the new experimental format is adopted which provides for a sprint qualification on Saturday to determine the starting grid for the Sunday Grand Prix.
Less free practice, therefore, available to the teams to better study the strategies, but everyone (including the first ten of the grid) will have free choice of tires at the start. Let’s analyze all the possible scenarios and variables in play on the eve of the fourth to last race of the year.
Starting grid (Top-10): free choice of tires
GdP
Difference between compounds and longer stints (Pirelli data)
Best strategies on 71 laps of the GP San Paolo (Pirelli data)
All compounds will be able to play a fundamental role. The fastest strategy for the 71 laps of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix should be the two-stop one, but a lot will depend on the track temperature (it should be a bit warmer than the sprint race on Saturday). The Soft and Medium tires showed similar performance but higher than expected levels of wear.
On paper, the fastest option should be two stops with the Medium followed by two sets of Hard. Another possibility (very close in terms of overall race time) is to use all three compounds: start on the Medium and then use the Hard for the central stint, before finishing on the Soft.
However, the one stop strategy is also another possibility. This could be done by starting on Medium and then switching to Hard and thus benefiting from a long opening stint and gaining positions on the track, or alternatively switching from Soft to Hard (although the latter option would require more management given the full load. of the cars at the start of the race).
According to the rules of the GPs with Sprint Qualifying, drivers can take the start of the Grand Prix with any compound, regardless of the tires used in sprint qualifying.
“The high level of evolution of the track combined with average temperatures have brought the Soft back into play as an option for the Sprint Qualifying – he has declared Mario Isola, Car Racing Manager of Pirelli – The extra speed of the Soft could have helped at the start, in fact Bottas’ Mercedes and Sainz’s Ferrari made excellent starts to take the top two positions. It was then a question of managing the softer compound in the later stages of the race, which Bottas did brilliantly by winning the Sprint Qualifying in order to take pole for the Grand Prix. For the actual race, given that track temperatures should be warmer, we expect what in theory should be a two-stop race with all compounds capable of playing a key role. Both the Soft and Medium compound were used extensively during the Sprint Qualifying and the teams have adopted different strategies, so there will be a lot of data to analyze ”.
Set of tires available for the race (Pirelli data)
Forecast for the race (14:00 local time)
2 pm: mostly clear, 23 ° C, wind 18 km / h SE, 2% probability of rain
3pm: mostly clear, 23 ° C, wind 22km / h SSE, 5% probability of rain
Television programming in Italy
Direct Sky Sport F1: 16:25 Paddock Live, 17:55 GP Brazil, 19:55 Paddock Live
Deferred TV8: 19:55 Pre-race, 21:30 Brazilian GP, 23:25 Post-race
#Brazilian #race #pace #tire #strategies #weather #FormulaPassionit