The opportunity to use more tyres during today’s practice sessions shows an improvement F1 should consider, says Lewis Hamilton.
Teams are normally restricted to 13 sets of dry-weather tyres during a race weekend. The rules require them to return four sets during the course of Friday, and teams typically use two sets each in first and second practice.However teams knew in advance of today’s sessions that final practice would be cancelled, and took advantage of the chance to run more sets of tyres. Hamilton said this made for a “much better” day of running.
“Normally we only have two tyres per session. [But] because we’re obviously missing tomorrow we brought all the tyres that we have tomorrow, the two sets we have in the next session, into today.
“So that’s an interesting learning. Maybe they need to bring us more tyres in a race weekend and we can do three runs.
“If we had three tyres in practice one and practice two, and three and practice three, it would just be better for running, better for the fans because we run from the beginning of the session rather than wait 20 minutes and then go out.”
Mercedes were first and second in both practice sessions, Hamilton behind team mate Valtteri Bottas in each. “We’ve got through our programme,” he said. “Valtteri had a little spin on one of our laps that we were about to start. But nonetheless it’s been a good day. Valtteri showed good pace.”
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Jere (@jerejj)
11th October 2019, 9:33
I disagree. The current number of sets per driver for a single race-weekend is perfectly fine and at times, could be even lower than that.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
11th October 2019, 22:35
Too much action maybe. Honestly on a normal weekend more tyres would not entice teams to run more, they would run the same but use more tyres.
Matteo (@m-bagattini)
11th October 2019, 9:34
> If we had three tyres in practice one and practice two, and three and practice three, it would just be better for running, better for the fans because we run from the beginning of the session rather than wait 20 minutes and then go out
Would they? Did they run more because they had more tires, or because they had less time since FP3 will be missed?
Phylyp (@phylyp)
11th October 2019, 10:15
@m-bagattini – yeah, that was my thought as well, that it was more down to them having to gather three sessions worth of data in two sessions (therefore having to hit the track more), than them having three sessions worth of tyres to use in two.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
11th October 2019, 10:58
So easy. Remove 2 sessions from the weekend, keep tire allocation the same.
ian dearing
11th October 2019, 10:02
I think its a great idea and what they could do………………wait!……Hamilton said it?…………well in that case…..the last thing fans want is more tyres and more running during practice. Stupid idea!
James Neutron (@phillyspur)
11th October 2019, 12:56
Spot on!
@HoHum (@hohum)
11th October 2019, 12:37
Alternately, to avoid extra costs they could just make the tyres last longer.
Robbie (@robbie)
11th October 2019, 14:20
@hohum You nailed it. Also, would they actually run more, or just continue to consider Pu/gearbox conservation and still sit in their garages for 20 minute stretches in spite of having more tires?
Carlos Medrano (@carlosmedrano)
11th October 2019, 14:34
I get it its better for the fans there at the track and people at home. More cars doing more laps
ADUB SMALLBLOCK (@waptraveler)
11th October 2019, 15:00
We are hearing a driver’s opinion here. Left to the drivers, they would be on the track as much as they could be (I sure would😄). But the teams have to consider hours on all the limited elements, so I doubt the teams would let them run any more hours than they are now (weekend total).
chimaera2003 (@chimaera2003)
11th October 2019, 22:40
As you state, there will be another limiting factor that will appear. Would have thought the PU life would probably limit any extra running even if unlimited tyres became available.