Friday: Pirelli rain tires could last 60 laps
The first two practice sessions of the British Grand Prix were affected by torrential rain, marking the start of a weekend that could also be rainy during qualifying and the race, according to the latest weather forecasts. The Cinturato tires will therefore be in the spotlight at Pirelli.
Since both practice sessions were held in rainy conditions, teams were allowed to use an additional set of intermediate tires, in accordance with the regulations introduced last year to encourage drivers to take to the track. The total allocation was therefore three sets of Cinturato Blue wet tires and five sets of Cinturato Green intermediates (one of the sets to be returned this evening). The slicks designated for the weekend are the P Zero Silver hard and the P Zero Yellow soft.
Able to evacuate up to 60 liters of water per second at full speed, the blue rain tires were mainly used today. The second practice session began with even wetter conditions than in the morning. With more rain expected over the weekend, the drivers have already had the chance to get used to the Silverstone track in wet conditions and the teams were able to make updates.
The best time of the morning went to Romain Grosjean’s Lotus, clocking in at 1:56.552 with blue tires – 10 seconds slower than the average time of last year’s Free Practice 1 on a drying track.
Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) was the first to switch to the intermediate Cinturato Greens mid-session, before it was interrupted by a red flag due to Bruno Senna’s (Williams) off-track excursion. With his McLaren, Lewis Hamilton returned with the best time of the day at the end of the second session, clocking a time of 1:56.345, still on Cinturato Blue, ahead of Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber, who only used a single set of rain tires all day.
Paul Hembery, Director of Pirelli Motorsport: « With typical English summer weather, we might be facing our first completely rainy weekend, without having to use the dry tires. As tricky as the conditions are, it was important today for the drivers to find their footing in case this situation stays the same for the rest of the weekend. Some drivers tried the intermediates at the end of the second session to get an idea of the operating windows, which will likely be one of the keys to strategy.
Such conditions often offer surprises, and we should certainly have an unpredictable weekend. It’s unfortunate for the fans, however, who couldn’t see much running today. We can certainly work with the teams to find solutions to encourage more track time in these circumstances for the future, like allocating more tires, but everyone should agree on this, as we are not in a position to set the rules ourselves. We saw teams run many more laps than others today, with Sauber completing the most. This could be an indication regarding the strategies for the race.
If we have to head into a race with wet weather tires, they should have a lifespan of about 60 laps.
Use of Pirelli tires:
– Supertendre: 0 train
– Tendre: 0 train
– Intermédiaire: 10 trains utilisés (5 tours maximum)
– Pluie: 30 trains utilisés (15 tours maximum)
