Pirelli will bring a softer selection of tyres for this year’s race in Azerbaijan, the fourth round of the world championship.
Formula One’s official tyre supplier has nominated the soft, super-soft and ultra-soft tyres. Last year the medium, soft and super-soft were brought to the race on the Baku City Circuit. However no driver ran the medium tyre during the race.
Drivers will be required to use the ultra-soft tyres if they reach Q3 and keep one set each of the super-soft and soft available for the race.
Pirelli has not nominated the softest tyre in its 2018 range, the hyper-soft, for any of the first four races. This is one of two new tyres it has introduced this year along with the super-hard.
2018 tyre nominations so far
| 2018 tyres | 2017 tyres | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melbourne | Soft | Super-soft | Ultra-soft | Soft | Super-soft | Ultra-soft |
| Bahrain | Medium | Soft | Super-soft | Medium | Soft | Super-soft |
| Shanghai | Medium | Soft | Ultra-soft | Medium | Soft | Super-soft |
| Baku | Soft | Super-soft | Ultra-soft | Medium | Soft | Super-soft |
2018 F1 season
- F1 feared “death knell” for Drive to Survive after Ferrari and Mercedes snub
- McLaren staff told us we were “totally crazy” to take Honda engines in 2018 – Tost
- ‘It doesn’t matter if we start last’: How Red Bull’s junior team aided Honda’s leap forward
- Honda’s jet division helped F1 engineers solve power unit problem
- McLaren Racing losses rise after Honda split
Jere (@jerejj)
11th January 2018, 19:24
Finally. About time they had enough courage choose the US/SS/S combination for this circuit. They should’ve brought this combination to this venue last season already.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
12th January 2018, 0:11
The problem is @jerejj this is pretty much the same nomination as last year’s. They chose not to bring the softest tyre. Pirelli is afraid of the high terminal velocity of Baku. I don’t get it, if there’s a track suited to hyper soft it must be Monaco and Baku.
Jere (@jerejj)
12th January 2018, 7:47
@peartree I can understand them opting to not choose the hyper-soft compound for this race as they had to make the compound-combination selection for this race before pre-season testing, but never understood and still don’t today the lack of courage to bring the US/SS/S combination to this circuit last season same with Monza while at the same time they had the courage to bring the US compound to Mexico despite it featuring similarly high top speeds than the former two. Now that they finally dared to choose the ultra-soft for the Azerbaijan GP I hope they’ll also have the courage to bring it to Monza.
Racingdave
11th January 2018, 21:15
About time the teams had the freedom to choose themselves – could lead to some interesting races👍
Ashwin (@redbullf1)
11th January 2018, 23:40
so that Vettel thinks twice about hitting someone :D
sorry couldn’t resist
BasCB (@bascb)
12th January 2018, 7:15
I sure hope that the ranges they pick will fit the tracks better and actually get used. But let’s wait and see for that.
frood19 (@frood19)
12th January 2018, 9:05
what race is the ultra-hard likely to be used for? the paris-dakar?
Jesper (@jesperfey13)
12th January 2018, 11:14
@frood19 hahah +1