Tyre Choices for the Chinese Grand Prix

The Chinese Grand Prix in F1 is ahead of us. It will be held on the weekend 15^th-17^th April at Shanghai International Circuit. Formula 1 fans love the Chinese GP, mostly because it is one of the trickiest tracks which is a guarantee for a lot of thrill and excitement. Hermann Tilke did a great job in the design of the track. Fans from all over the world will be travelling to Shanghai to witness this great event. If you’re a F1 fan, you could also win tickets to the final f1 grand prix of 2016. Lewis Hamilton managed to win the last two Chinese Grand Prixes and he has a total of four wins at the Chinese GP, but will he be able to win 3 in a row? In the first two races for these season Rosberg came on top despite Hamilton’s pole positions. Surely, Hamilton is hoping to win the race and frankly, it seems that the pressure is on him.

New Tyre Rules

Tyre selection is a very important aspect of Formula 1 and it can often determine the winner. If a driver’s team have made the right selection of tyres, then a large proportion of the job is already done. As China is only the third race these season and there are new tyre rules starting this season, some of the viewers are not yet familiar with the changes that took place. Some of the more specific rules can be quite complicated, but you shouldn’t bothered by them. What’s important is the number of sets of tyres available over the course of whole weekend is still 13 and out of those 13 sets two are selected by Pirelli and those two could be composed of different compounds. A third softest set is also included whereas for the remaining 10 sets it’s totally up to the teams.

What Did Players Choose

The teams have already selected sets of tyres for their players and they have passed the info onto Pirelli. As you know, Pirelli is the only provider of tyres in Formula 1 since 2011. The favourite, Brit Lewis Hamilton will be taking a balanced approach as his selected sets will be 4 Medium, 4 Soft and 5 Supersoft. He obviously aims for a bit more durability, as most of the other players chose more Supersoft tyres. Rosberg, for example, will be starting with an equal number of Supersoft sets- 5, but he will only have 3 Medium sets, which leaves him with 5 Soft sets. His compatriot Sebastian Vettel is going for 3 Medium, 4 Soft and 6 Supersoft. Raikkonen made same choice.

Full range of Pirelli F1 tyres

Bottas, on the other hand will have only 2 Medium sets and 7 Supersoft. Australian Ricciardo will also have 2 Medium sets, but 5 Soft and 6 Supersoft. Daniil Kvyat, Nico Hulkenberg, Sergio Pérez and Magnussen made the same choice as Ricciardo. Massa will be starting with only 1 Medium set and 7 Super Soft. The choices of all other drivers who are not expected to be serious challengers in Shanghai go pretty much along those lines with the exception of Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson who opted for 5 Medium sets.

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