Saturday: Pirelli expects three stops in Bahrain
After the qualifications where Paul Hembery believes that Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull were able to make the most of the Italian tires, the director of Pirelli Motorsport expects three pit stops for the leaders and thinks that some might even try to make only two.
The reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel secured his first pole position of the season at the Bahrain Grand Prix with a time of 1m32.422s. This lap on the P Zero Yellow soft tires is the fastest recorded all weekend so far. With eight different teams ranked in the Top 10, the pole was decided in the very last seconds of the session.
As expected, the temperatures were high with dry weather for the qualifications on the Sakhir circuit, posing a real challenge for the rear tires in particular, which had to provide traction on a wide variety of medium-speed corners, often dirtied by sand blowing onto the track. Lap times dramatically dropped during qualifications this afternoon, contributing to major surprises, with some teams attempting to find a compromise between conserving the tires and achieving a sufficiently competitive lap time.
Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso was the first of the major players to switch to P Zero Yellow softs in Q1, with the fastest time set by Sergio Perez in the Sauber.
All the drivers, except for Nico Hülkenberg’s Force India, started Q2 on Pirelli softs, while Heikki Kovalainen’s Caterham, which impressively made it out of Q1 for the first time, only completed one run on P Zero Mediums at the end of the session.
The Red Bulls and McLarens went out for two runs in Q3, using the softest compounds on each occasion. Vettel clinched pole on his last flying lap, less than a tenth of a second quicker than Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren. Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg completed only one outing on softs to qualify fifth, while Daniel Ricciardo’s Toro Rosso surged to sixth place (the Australian’s best qualifying). Alonso and Di Resta did not run and will start 9th and 10th respectively, having the choice of tires for the start tomorrow.
During the final morning practice sessions, Michael Schumacher was the first Mercedes driver to switch to soft tires, followed later by his teammate Nico Rosberg, who set the fastest time of 1m33.254s, just ahead of Vettel.
Paul Hembery, Pirelli Motorsport Director: We have witnessed excellent work from Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull, demonstrating their ability to get the best out of the tires, extracting every ounce of performance from the softest compound. With the entire grid having significantly closed in terms of pure pace this year, every small advantage found by a driver is magnified, meaning that tire strategy becomes increasingly important. Strategy also influences qualifying, with the soft tires expected to last 18 to 20 laps in race conditions, and the medium tires potentially reaching 23 to 25 laps. We anticipate three pit stops for the leaders, although some may attempt two depending on their preferred compound choice. Tire degradation is more or less in line with what we expected, given the temperatures exceeding 45°C. In terms of speed difference between the tires, we expect 0.6 to 0.8 seconds between the compounds, possibly a bit less. Tire degradation will certainly be an important factor for tomorrow’s race, but managing the tires well presents another important opportunity for this talented grid of drivers to demonstrate their skill.
The tires used by the Top 10
– Vettel: Tendre
– Hamilton: Tendre
– Webber: Tendre
– Button: Tendre
– Rosberg: Tendre
– Ricciardo: Tendre
– Grosjean: Tendre
– Perez: Tendre
– Alonso: Pas de temps établi
– Di Resta: Pas de temps établi
[From the official Pirelli press release]
