The race strategy in view of the forty-four laps scheduled today at Spa is not as clear as on other occasions. The first variable that the teams will have to deal with is the conditions of the track, which promises to be warmer than yesterday.
The race should start with about 34/35 degrees of asphalt, or fifteen more than the conditions in which free practice and qualifying took place. This variation will have an impact on the durability of the rubber, but it is not yet clear what its extent will be.
According to the Pirelli simulations, the fastest strategy will be two stops, starting on a medium tire, then switching to soft around the fifteenth lap, and returning to the average for the last third of the race. All the ‘bigs’ have kept two sets of new ‘yellow’, and there are also those who will have new soft sets available: a train for Leclerc, Ricciardo and Norris, and two for Verstappen.
Pirelli’s alternative, considered in terms of overall performance very close to the previous one, is a strategy that involves a single stop, starting on a medium compound and then switching to hard around the twentieth lap. There are no fears about the grip of the harder compound, to the point that Pirelli also suggests starting with the soft and switching to hard from lap 16 to lap 22 as a third solution.
A further question mark is represented by the safety car risk, a variable obviously always present, but statistically more probable on the Spa circuit.
In addition to the historical data, also in all the other races of the weekend there were freezes due to accidents and off the track. The addition of gravel escape route made it more difficult for drivers to resume racing in the event of off-track exits, as verified in both Formula 2 and Formula 3.
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