Pirelli tyres, Circuit de Catalunya, 2019

Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull differ in Singapore tyre choices

2019 Singapore Grand Prix

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[gmsabu]

The three leading Formula 1 teams have all picked significantly different tyre choices for next week’s Singapore Grand Prix.

Red Bull has opted for the most sets of the softest tyres available. Max Verstappen and and Alexander Albon will each have 10 sets of the soft compound tyre.

However the team has also taken two sets of the hard compound per driver, indicating they intend to test the compound in practice, and just a single set of the mediums.

Mercedes has also chosen two sets of the hard tyres but will have fewer sets of softs, selecting eight each for Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. This is because they have chosen three sets of the medium tyres to Red Bull’s one.

Ferrari have also chosen three sets of mediums but will only have the single mandatory set of hard tyres for each of its cars.

Williams has chosen the fewest soft tyres of all the teams, selecting seven sets for George Russell and Robert Kubica.

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2019 Singapore Grand Prix tyre selections

DriverTeamHard (C3)Medium (C4)Soft (C5)
Lewis HamiltonMercedes238
Valtteri BottasMercedes238
Sebastian VettelFerrari139
Charles LeclercFerrari139
Max VerstappenRed Bull2110
Alexander AlbonRed Bull2110
Daniel RiccairdoRenault1210
Nico HulkenbergRenault2110
Kevin MagnussenHaas139
Romain GrosjeanHaas229
Carlos Sainz JnrMcLaren229
Lando NorrisMcLaren229
Sergio PerezRacing Point2110
Lance StrollRacing Point2110
Kimi RaikkonenAlfa Romeo139
Antonio GiovinazziAlfa Romeo229
Daniil KvyatToro Rosso229
Pierre GaslyToro Rosso239
George RussellWilliams247
Robert KubicaWilliams157

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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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13 comments on “Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull differ in Singapore tyre choices”

  1. Again no confidence in Hards from Ferrari and Singapore is notoriously hot(except when it rains).

    1. Singapore is never hot because it’s always a night race. Tracks aren’t very hot when the sun isn’t shining on them.

      1. It sounds like you have never visited the island. At the time of writing, it is 03:00am in Singapore and cloudy; the temperature is 27 degrees – as a north European, I call that hot.

        1. The tires don’t really care about air temp, they care about track temp, please pay attention to what this article and conversation is about.

          1. Did I rattle your cage and make you angry; sorry that was not my intention.

            Have you never come across heat transfer equations?

            F1 tyres run at a hundred degrees or so.

            Tyres are in contact with the track but they are NOT in thermodynamic equilibrium with the track – the tyres are usually quite a bit hotter and subject to temperature flows in and out. The 2nd law of thermodynamics may be expressed as: “heat flows spontaneously from a hot to a cold body”. It follows that heat flows from one hundred degree tyres into a thirty degree track and NOT the other way about. Brakes running at a thousand degrees or more will dump heat into the wheels and onwards into the tyres.

            The track temperature will impact the RATE at which tyres cool but it is impossible for the track to heat the tyre to a higher temperature than the track’s surface.

            Therefore tyre heat, on an F1 car in action, does not arise from a sun heated track – spinning up the wheels, friction and soak from the brakes [which are VERY much hotter than the track] play important parts.

          2. @gnosticbrian
            Thanks mate. That was informative.

  2. What are Red Bull playing at? If the Hards turn out to be a bad tire in the race (too hard, for instance) then you have an unknown or worn medium as only alternative.

    1. Bit puzzled here myself @hahostolze you’d think they’d want to maybe split the strategy between the drivers so that one of them has 2 sets of mediums and can get some data for the team on them

    2. @hahostolze RB really want pole, I guess they believe they can’t be overtaken. They’ll qualify on softs then take mediums.
      Merc super safe, Ferrari sacrificed the hard to have an extra soft, makes more sense to sacrifice a medium for a soft.

  3. Hope this leads to some different strategies by the teams.

  4. Why does Gasly get to take an extra set?

    1. Peter Waters (@)
      11th September 2019, 11:37

      Has to be a typo I think

Comments are closed.