Mercedes favour harder tyres for Mexican Grand Prix

2016 Mexican Grand Prix

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Mercedes have chosen a harder mix of tyres for next week’s Mexican Grand Prix than their closest competitors.

Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg will have just five sets of the super-soft tyres for the race weekend compared to six for the Ferrari and Red Bull drivers.

The hardest available compound is the medium tyre, which Rosberg will have four sets of, two more than Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.

Toro Rosso has staked its fortunes on the super-soft tyre which it will bring eight sets of for the Mexican Grand Prix weekend.

The Mercedes drivers finished one-two in last year’s race after running two-stop strategies which involved one stint on softs and two on mediums. However Hamilton described his second stop for medium tyres as a “wrong call” and Sergio Perez was able to complete the race with a single pit stop.

DriverTeamTyres
Lewis HamiltonMercedes
Nico RosbergMercedes
Sebastian VettelFerrari
Kimi RaikkonenFerrari
Felipe MassaWilliams
Valtteri BottasWilliams
Daniel RicciardoRed Bull
Max VerstappenRed Bull
Nico HulkenbergForce India
Sergio PerezForce India
Kevin MagnussenRenault
Jolyon PalmerRenault
Daniil KvyatToro Rosso
Carlos Sainz JnrToro Rosso
Marcus EricssonSauber
Felipe NasrSauber
Fernando AlonsoMcLaren
Jenson ButtonMcLaren
Pascal WehrleinManor
Esteban OconManor
Romain GrosjeanHaas
Esteban GutierrezHaas

2016 Mexican Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    5 comments on “Mercedes favour harder tyres for Mexican Grand Prix”

    1. I might be wrong here, but while Hamilton claimed that putting on the Medium had been a mistake, from the outside it looked like the right choice but just him not being able to do anything about not losing to Rosberg.

    2. That annoying story about Hamilton last year again?
      It was crystal clear that Mercedes merely changed the strategy to two stops to minimise the risk of tyre failure, not because it was the faster strategy. Hamilton’s complaints may have been somewhat understandable during the race, because there was no obvious need for a second pit stop. But since Rosberg had already pitted, assuming that the order applied to both drivers (otherwise he wouldn’t have had any reason to pit, either), leaving Hamilton on the track would’ve been tantamount to screwing Rosberg over. In that sense, Lewis’s complaints were aimed at Mercedes’s unwillingness to let him exploit asymmetrical information.
      If he still presents the facts that way, ignoring the fact that there was no need to pit Rosberg, either, then I can’t think of anything nice to say about that.

      1. It’s unbelievable that every single story about Mercedes and strategy always somehow gets spun in favour of Hamilton and against Rosberg (this is not a shot against Keith specifically).

        When Mercedes pitted both drivers at Mexico last year, it was seen as them screwing Hamilton over by not letting him exploit an unfair strategy advantage (Nico would NOT have pit if he knew that Lewis was not planning to pit). Then in Brazil, Rosberg was saving his tyres under the impression that they were going on the 2-stop strategy, while Hamilton bolted on his first set of mediums and caught up to Rosberg, pressuring him for several laps while Nico was clearly saving his tyres. Then Rosberg also switched to a 3 stop, and Lewis never got close to him again in the race. The reaction from the fans was that Lewis was quicker, but not given the benefit of an alternate strategy. As per usual, this was nonsense.

        1. But you also fail to see when at times Lewis, mid race, he ups the game or finds the moto, and goes to win he drives superbly, and pressures opponents to make mistake which we have seen many times… so what makes you think it wouldnt work even with alternate strategy given to his team mate? When they are allowed to compete eachother, Lewis has come on top countless times, or Ros just crashed into him when he didnt like…

    3. So what are the tyres left for tomorrow after the fps and Qs? any info on this?

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