(Pirelli Motorsport Media)
Pirelli have confirmed that they will bring the white walled
Medium and yellow walled Soft tyre compounds to this weekend’s Chinese Grand
Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit.
It is the second time this season
that this combination has been used as they were brought to the season opening
Australian Grand Prix last month.
Pirelli expect the performance deficit between each tyre
will be between 1.2 to 1.4 seconds. Last years’ Chinese Grand Prix winner Lewis
Hamilton took the victory using a two stop strategy.
The Shanghai circuit brings with it extremely high
acceleration out of the corners which means that drivers will be hoping that
they don’t experience wheel-spin as this will result in a high levels of
degradation.
Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix, Pirelli
Motorsport Director Paul Hembery stated:
‘The weather tends to be
quite unpredictable in China, although generally we can expect to see
temperatures that are significantly cooler than those we experienced in
Malaysia. Last year we had reasonably stable weather conditions in China
whereas in previous years it has been more up and down – so this throws in a
very interesting variable. The front-left tyre is the most stressed in
Shanghai, while the traction demands of the circuit also give a lot of work to
the rear tyres. Although we haven’t actually yet seen a very hot Chinese Grand
Prix during our time in Formula One, if you look at the weather history there
is potential for this to happen as well. This would make things very difficult
for the tyres – Shanghai is a big, open circuit and if you add in heat, it
creates a lot of energy – but we’ve seen from Malaysia that these tyres will
rise to the challenge. As Shanghai is a large circuit there’s plenty of
opportunity for overtaking and big on-track battles. Strategy-wise, we’d
normally expect a two-stop race.’
© Ben Johnston 2015
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