Saturday: Pirelli prepares for rain

The new soft (yellow) tires made their competitive debut this weekend at the Brazilian Grand Prix. Developed with next season in mind, the soft compound is offered alongside the current medium, white-walled compound this weekend.

The Double World Champion Sebastian Vettel became the driver with the most pole positions in a season this Saturday. By securing his 15th pole position in 19 Grand Prix, the Red Bull Racing driver broke the record held since 1992 by Nigel Mansell.

The qualifications took place with temperatures of 27°C and a cloudy sky, highlighting the ever-present risk of rain at this time of the year in Brazil. Most of the drivers decided to leave the pits as quickly as possible to set a time early in Q1. Both Red Bulls, the McLarens, as well as Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari and Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes used medium tires to progress to Q2. This sudden activity resulted in significant traffic on one of the shortest circuits of the calendar.

Q2 offered a similar scenario. This time all the drivers used the soft tires to optimize their performance on the dry track, with threatening rain clouds moving near the circuit. The leading drivers only needed to complete one flying lap, preserving their tires for Q3.

The weather remained dry for Q3. Different strategies emerged for the drivers on soft tires. Hamilton and Rosberg chose to complete a slow lap to warm up the tires before going for a second timed lap. Meanwhile, the Red Bull Racing cars and Button’s McLaren went straight for their timed laps.

Vettel set a time of 1:12.268 on his first stint, before surpassing this benchmark with a stunning 1:11.918, still on soft tires. His teammate Mark Webber came very close to stealing the spotlight and completes the front row of the grid, ahead of the two McLarens. Out on medium tires, Michael Schumacher did not record a lap time but will start tomorrow equipped with white-walled tires.

In the morning, Vettel had already set the fastest time in Free Practice 3 ahead of Jenson Button under hot and dry conditions. He recorded a time of 1’12”460 on soft tires.

Paul Hembery, Director of Pirelli Motorsport: « It was interesting for us to assess the performance of our new compound during qualifying, and I would like to congratulate Sebastian Vettel for breaking the record for the most poles in a season, thanks to his spectacular lap. I had bet with one of my colleagues that the 1 minute 12-second barrier would be broken today! With the threat of rain not affecting track conditions, the qualifying sessions were quite predictable, but we expect a more uncertain race tomorrow. This will clearly have a significant impact on strategies, and we might see the orange-walled wet tires and blue-walled intermediates making their last appearance of the season ».

[From the Pirelli press release]