All About The Tyres

This seasons Formula One season could all be about the tyres. Forget who the fastest car is or who has the best overall package as they tyre drop offs we are seeing is just as crucial.

I was watching the GP2 Series race yesterday and it was fascinating to watch. The cars in positions 1-10 all had the soft fastest tyre and none of them featured on the podium. The drivers in 16th and 11th won the race as they started on medium tyres. The race is not that long being only 32 laps yet the correct tyres were crucial. The drivers that won the race didn't just win but had a 40 second buffer over the others.

Today in the Hungarian Grand Prix that started on a wet track tyre choices were going to be critical. You would think that the teams would have got some info watching the other races over the weekend getting some idea how certain tyres react.

Ferrari with Charles Leclerc paid the price when they changed the intermediate tyres to a soft tyre and instead of tearing off into the distance started going backwards rather quickly. This was spotted by all the other teams and no one else went onto the soft tyres except for Hamilton right at the end.

Lewis Hamilton wanting to set the fastest lap time of the race to secure an extra bonus point asked his crew for the soft tyre with 10 laps to go. At that point Hamilton had a 26 second lead over second placed Verstappen yet his team said no as the tyre only lasts 3 laps and was too big a risk. The graining and degradation of the tyre is so rapid on this circuit that has many sharp corners it just doesn't last the distance that we have seen on other circuits.

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Normally we see only one pit stop. I am not sure if it is the circuit that is not tyre friendly as the mediums were not lasting the usual 40 laps, but half that. Car set ups may be a possible reason why some lasted longer than others.

Hamilton has shown along with Verstappen how to manage your tyres and to squeeze out the extra laps without sacrificing times and performance. They seem to be in another class to all the other drivers currently as they are way out front. It would be interesting to see Verstappen in the same car as Hamilton which will never happen unfortunately.

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Max Verstappen was nearly out before the race even started crashing on his warm up lap.

Red Bull had their hands full today with Verstappen crashing on the warm up lap but still repaired the damage in the 18 minutes they had left before the start. Racing stewards caught them cheating though on Albons box starting grid area as they were spotted drying the surface trying to find more grip. He should be disqualified as it doesn't get more blatant than that.

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Mechanics rushing parts over to the grid doing repairs on the damaged Red Bull car. They even managed to change a damaged wish bone plus the nose cone.

Next stop is Silverstone for a double header which should see the same sort of results unless tyres play another big role. Mercedes are too switched on to make those type of rookie mistakes and Ferrari need to wake up and pay attention. The interesting battle is not for the first 3 spots, but the ones for the lower positions from 3 down to 10 as there is not a massive difference between the second tier teams.