Ferrari has chosen a more aggressive selection of tyres for next weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix than Formula 1 rivals Mercedes and Red Bull.
Championship leader Sebastian Vettel will have nine sets of the ultra-soft tyres available, two more than either of the Mercedes or Red Bull drivers.Hamilton has chosen five sets of the soft compound tyre, two more than Vettel. Bot the leading title contenders have selected a single set of the medium compound.
Renault has selected the most ultra-soft tyres of any team: Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz Jnr will each have 10 sets of the softest tyres available for the Hungaroring race.
The Hungarian Grand Prix will be the third time this year Pirelli has ‘skipped’ a compound in its selection. As in China and Germany the super-soft tyre has not been nominated.
Driver | Team | Tyres |
---|---|---|
Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | |
Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | |
Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | |
Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | |
Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull | |
Max Verstappen | Red Bull | |
Sergio Perez | Force India | |
Esteban Ocon | Force India | |
Lance Stroll | Williams | |
Sergey Sirotkin | Williams | |
Carlos Sainz Jnr | Renault | |
Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | |
Pierre Gasly | Toro Rosso | |
Brendon Hartley | Toro Rosso | |
Romain Grosjean | Haas | |
Kevin Magnussen | Haas | |
Fernando Alonso | McLaren | |
Stoffel Vandoorne | McLaren | |
Marcus Ericsson | Sauber | |
Charles Leclerc | Sauber | |
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Vettel fan 17 (@)
17th July 2018, 11:25
I assume the supersoft graphic is meant to be replaced by the ultrasofts? @keithcollantine
Jere (@jerejj)
17th July 2018, 12:03
@vettelfan17 I noticed that error as well.
Garns (@)
17th July 2018, 14:05
Probably a good gamble to take really, not much overtaking at Hungary so a good qualifying pretty important there.
I found it interesting how Ferrari were the only team where drivers have different tyre choices.
dusty (@dusty)
17th July 2018, 14:24
Only 3 teams have the same tire choice for both drivers.
Garns (@)
17th July 2018, 14:56
Sorry, right you are, I completely ignored the Mediums column and looked at softs and ultra’s.
MattDS (@mattds)
17th July 2018, 15:01
@garns The difference in tyre choices often disappears after free practices: both drivers drive an extra practice stint on the compound they have more than the other, and so at the start of qualifying they all have the same.
However I’m not sure it’s that wise to go super agressive with tyre selections this year. I’ve done some numbers and if you tally it up the hardest compound available during the weekend has generally done the most racing laps. The totals are:
– Softest: 2540
– Middle: 3464
– Hardest: 4621
Meaning teams (well, at least the top 10) more often get the qualifying compound out of the way and then they run the middle or hardest compound available.
Garns (@)
17th July 2018, 15:17
@mattds
Interesting research mate, where did you get that info from?
You make a good point though, once they get their quali tyre done in the first stint most will run on the same preferred race tyre.
MattDS (@mattds)
17th July 2018, 19:15
@garns I copied all the stint info from the racefans “lap charts, times and tyres” feature that is made after every weekend into excel and parsed it into useable data and came up with that.
I also broke it down into actual compounds and this is the result of that (same as before, number of racing laps):
– hyper soft: 451
– ultra soft: 2008
– super soft: 2846
– soft: 3596
– medium: 1677
– hard: 47
Amount of races a compound was the preferred race tyre (vs was available during a weekend):
– hyper soft: 0/2
– ultra soft: 1/7
– super soft: 4/8
– soft: 4/8
– medium: 1/4
– hard: 0/1
Phylyp (@phylyp)
17th July 2018, 15:32
@mattds – very interesting statistic! If someone asked me to say which was the most often used race compound, I’d never have guessed the hardest compound of each weekend, I’d have gone for the middle one with a lot of (misplaced) confidence.
MattDS (@mattds)
17th July 2018, 19:16
@phylyp I would have thought the same. But I’m a bit of a nut for stats and I thought why not actually do the stats and see :)
Anthony
18th July 2018, 7:47
Wow, Great stats – very interesting.
And often drivers find themselves on the hardest compound, for the first time during a weekend, during the race (Ric leading in Monaco comes to mind as a good example). Perhaps an area teams could explore finding some race time?
SamIam
17th July 2018, 16:56
You may be right overall, but I don’t think the hardest was used the most in the British GP. Also varies on each team’s qualy performance and their confidence level for the particular GP.
MattDS (@mattds)
17th July 2018, 21:30
No, the hard tyre has only been available during the British GP and it was only fitted by two drivers – both Renaults for a total of 47 racing laps. However, Hulkenberg did drive them to a very fine sixth place.
But that’s why I said “generally” :)
erikje
17th July 2018, 18:31
They often use the hardest tire for setup testing. Resulting in lots of relatively slow laps.
MattDS (@mattds)
17th July 2018, 19:17
@erikje these are all actual racing laps, taken solely from the complete race stint info. No testing, no free practice laps included.
hobo (@hobo)
18th July 2018, 15:31
@mattds – This is exactly the sort of reason I like this site, stats nuts. I am one as well and seeing this sort of analysis is great. Keep it up!
Niefer (@niefer)
18th July 2018, 2:23
Good choices. Red Bull may have the upper hand there.