Friday: Pirelli Cinturato were in the spotlight
Rainy day at Albert Park for the first two practice sessions of the season during which the drivers had to use Cinturato tires before preparing with P Zero slicks for the rest of the weekend, which is expected to be on a dry track.
The 2012 Pirelli season began with the introduction of the new intermediate Cinturato Green compound, a name chosen in tribute to the original Pirelli tire that raced in Formula 1 in the 1950s. It was the Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso) who first took to the track under wet conditions at Albert Park for the first free practice session of the season.
The teams have a total allocation of 11 sets of slicks for the race weekend and must be able to find all tire compounds for the start of free practice within this allocation. However, with rain dominating both sessions this Friday in Australia, the teams can retain a set of dry tires for the following day, as provided by the regulations in case of two rainy sessions. Additionally, if one of the two sessions takes place on a wet track, the teams are also entitled to an extra set of intermediates, in addition to their usual allocation of 4 sets of intermediates and three sets of rain tires per GP weekend.
During the first session, starting on a very wet track but gradually drying, it was Jenson Button’s McLaren that was the fastest with a time of 1:27.560 on P Zero medium White tires. This was the best time of the day, during which slick, intermediate, and wet compounds were used.
The rain continued to fall in the afternoon, with little action at the start of the second session as the track remained wet; however, drier conditions are expected for the rest of the weekend. All teams used the full wets, with Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) first taking the lead with intermediates an hour before the end of the session. Once the track finally dried up about thirty minutes before the session’s end, it was Michael Schumacher who topped the timesheets with his Mercedes and the medium White P Zero compound, clocking in at 1:29.183.
Most of the installation and setup laps were completed on intermediates and in the rain, with very few runs on soft tires. The changing conditions overall did not allow for firm conclusions to be drawn.
Paul Hembery, Director of Pirelli Motorsport: « With a wide range of conditions today, we had to run all four types of tires brought here, and the teams were able to do significant work on the convergence points. The weather is expected to remain dry for the rest of the weekend, so it’s understandable that most drivers chose to focus on dry runs. However, due to the limited time available on a dry track, we won’t have a completely reliable picture of everyone’s relative performance until tomorrow. We noticed that the medium tire was particularly suitable for today’s conditions, and the performance gap between the two compounds has significantly decreased. But there is still a lot of data to analyze tonight before we can provide detailed times. »
Total number of trains used: 12 soft, 37 medium, 24 intermediate, 18 rain.
Most laps completed per tire set: 11 laps on softs, 15 laps on mediums, 12 laps on intermediates, 8 laps on wets.
**Pirelli Fact of the Day:** The greatest forces inflicted on the tires at Albert Park are 4.87G during braking at turn 2, where cars lose 200 km/h over 108 meters. There is little micro and macro abrasiveness on the circuit, meaning the gravel composing the tarmac surface is small, smooth, and offers little grip.
