Friday: Hard tires satisfy Pirelli
In the extreme conditions reserved for teams by the Sepang circuit, the hard tires are satisfying for Pirelli in their competitive debut.
For the first time this season, the new Pirelli P Zero Silver hard tire came into action on the track. An ideal compound in the hot and humid conditions of Sepang, where the track temperature rose to 47°C today.
It was McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton who set the fastest time in the first Free Practice session of the morning, with a time of 1’38”021 on hard P Zero Silver tires. With uncertain weather conditions, many drivers took the opportunity of a dry track to embark on long stints on the hard compound in the first session. Only Caterham drivers Vitaly Petrov and Heikki Kovalainen took to the track on medium P Zero White tires during the ninety-minute session, completing nine and three laps respectively.
The conditions remained dry during the second Free Practice session, with drivers using the medium and hard tires from the start of the session. Hamilton was once again the fastest with a time of 1’38″172, this time on the medium P Zero White compound.
Paul Hembery, Director of Pirelli Motorsport: Due to the weather conditions and the abrasive track surface, degradation here is more significant than in Melbourne. The hard tire performed very well during long stints, but we need to properly analyze the data to have a better idea of the exact number of laps each tire can handle, and the number of pit stops. Our initial impression is that a three-stop strategy seems likely, and we have observed so far a 0.5-second gap between the two compounds—but the track will evolve considerably before the race. Today’s sessions were extremely important for the teams, who were able to embark on long stints to determine the operating windows of different compounds and the tires to use during the race.
Total number of trains used: 53 sets of medium tires and 25 sets of hard tires.
Greatest number of laps completed by a train: 15 laps for mediums and hards.
The Pirelli Fact of the Day: To precisely determine the “softness” degree of each tire, it is good to know that the super soft compound corresponds to a 100% degree (unchanged since 2011), and the soft tire is 10% harder. The medium compound is 25% harder than the super soft; the hard compound is 31% harder. Last year, the soft tire was 25% harder than the super soft, while the hard was 70% harder! This illustrates how much the compounds have been brought closer to each other to create more tire strategies.
[From the official Pirelli press release]
