No mystery that I am on record as not being a huge fan of the high degradation tires. I tend to like the concept of the tires being made to a specific spec and offering a prime and option for each race. Now, I know fans of the current Pirelli HD tires and the impact it has on the Formula 1 series will disagree with me, but I am curious of what you may think of Daniel Ricciardo’s position.
“I don’t know why we can’t have the hypersoft at every race,” he said. “Or at least we qualify on it and maybe figure it out after that.
“But at least we’ve got a qualifying tyre and then bigger differences in the race to create a bit more opportunity.
“For the top six it was already obvious from Friday [at Barcelona] we were going to qualify on the soft [in Q2, to start the race on that compound] and try to do a one-stop with the medium. That’s no secret.
“That’s what it is – just trying to create more options, more surprises, because it’s a bit predictable for now.”
Pirelli might argue that the new tire compounds and additional compounds they’ve introduced this year are what is actually creating a more unpredictability in the racing we’ve seen so far and I might agree with that to a point. I think the teams have been struggling to get on top of the new compounds and that’s added a bit of drama.
Mercedes certainly liked the special Spanish Grand Prix tires while Ferrari didn’t but up until Spain, Ferrari were at home on the tire compounds on offer and Mercedes struggled a bit. At least that’s what it seemed like to me but I could be wrong, of course.
What about having the Hypersoft at every race as a qualifying tire and possible spanner in the works for teams to use tactically? Is that a good idea or do you feel it would lead to more confusion or other issues?
Hat Tip: Autosport
I still think they should get rid of the have to run two different types of tires. Just bring two or three types to the track and let the team have free reign over what they run in the race.
Yeah, I’d rather see that too.
How would that work? The tyres won’t even last the whole lap in most tracks and will lead to the prime tire being used to qualify as it will give a quicker overall lap time. Even in Barcelona, we had Ricciardo himself along with the Ferrari’s qualifying on the theoretical slower tyre because they felt the SS wouldn’t offer a performance gain. I fail to see how the hypersofts would have helped in this instance.
I wouldn’t mind having qualifying specific tyres if it was possible. Not sure why it has to be the Ultrasoft though, surely it should be whatever is the optimum design for that specific venue.
The only thing will say is this is the usual danger with F1. We get one thing that people think wow, that was good so lets do it all the time. That is how we ended up with HD tires in the first place and when you do things all the time, it eventually stops being special.
Tom. what is “HD’ tyres?. If F1 will go for a qualifying specification tyre only it will be so soft that there will be the need for the qualifying only tyre to be track specific.
NC. Not all the teams were struggling with the 2018 compund tyres, or better say some were struggling much more than others. The introduction of the new gauge tyre at the 5th GP and intended for just three specific tracks has certainly changed the tyre goal posts in-season. I personally see nothing wrong in the introduction of a qualifying tyre, but still there will be cars that can get better times than others over a lap from such tyres. all in all a qualifying only tyre will add complications to an already complicated tyre situation. Just some information about the… Read more »
I agree with DR…that would give the teams a chance to mix up quali and get some more interesting strategies.