Saturday, 4 October 2014

Pirelli Japanese Grand Prix qualifying report:

(Pirelli Motorsport Media)

Mercedes Nico Rosberg took pole position for tomorrow's Japanese Grand Prix at the Suzuka circuit by just two tenths of a second from team mate and championship leader Lewis Hamilton. The German completed his fastest lap of 1m 32.056s on a brand new set of the white walled Pirelli P-Zero Medium compound tyre's.

All of the driver's who will start tomorrow's race in the top ten completed the fastest times in Q3 on brand new Medium tyre's. 

Pirelli predict that a two stop strategy is the fastest way to complete the 53 lap race. The optimum strategy is starting the race on Medium tyre change to another set of the Medium tyre's on lap 22 while changing to a set of the orange walled Hard compound tyre's on lap 42.

A three stop strategy could be used starting on the Medium compound tyre before switching to the Medium tyre on lap 33 a final stop for the Hard compound tyre will be made on lap 47.

Speaking about tomorrow's race, Pirelli Motorsport director Paul Hembery stated:

'Once more, there were no big surprises today – on the track at least. The performance gap between the two compounds has come down slightly, as we anticipated, but the medium is still expected to be the main race tyre. 

That’s assuming it doesn’t rain of course, and there is still a strong element of doubt about this because of the nearby typhoon. So it could be a very different story tomorrow and it’s going to be interesting to see what happens.'

© Ben Johnston 2014

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