Haas and Renault take no super-soft tyres to Canada

2016 Canadian Grand Prix

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The Haas and Renault team will not take any super-soft tyres to the Canadian Grand Prix, Pirelli has announced.

Both teams will only have the ultra-soft and soft compounds available to use, with Haas selecting ten sets of the softest available rubber.

Teams are required to have two sets of soft tyres available or the race but the super-soft compounds is not mandatory. The ultra-soft must be used in Q3.

Mercedes have opted for eight sets of ultra-soft, more than Ferrari or Red Bull who have chosen seven each.

DriverTeamTyres
Lewis HamiltonMercedes
Nico RosbergMercedes
Sebastian VettelFerrari
Kimi RaikkonenFerrari
Felipe MassaWilliams
Valtteri BottasWilliams
Daniel RicciardoRed Bull
Max VerstappenRed Bull
Nico HulkenbergForce India
Sergio PerezForce India
Kevin MagnussenRenault
Jolyon PalmerRenault
Daniil KvyatToro Rosso
Carlos Sainz JnrToro Rosso
Marcus EricssonSauber
Felipe NasrSauber
Fernando AlonsoMcLaren
Jenson ButtonMcLaren
Pascal WehrleinManor
Rio HaryantoManor
Romain GrosjeanHaas
Esteban GutierrezHaas

2016 Canadian Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
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    18 comments on “Haas and Renault take no super-soft tyres to Canada”

    1. I thought you had to take all three compounds? So the soft is the only mandatory compound? And then one of the other two for the race? I’m suddenly confused and I haven’t been that on the tyre rules before.

      1. Pirelli selects two mandatory sets of tyres for every race weekend, which usually are – but needn’t be – from different compounds. For Canada, the mandatory tyres are two sets of Softs. Everything else is the teams’ choice.

    2. Ultra soft? They seemed quite hard in Monaco.

    3. They said it was indeed possible for the race tires to be the same compound, but I think it’s a bit weird. As there is no real benefit of using the middle compound (the supersofts), the drivers will likely use the ultrasofts and the softs only in the race, which reduces strategic variety. Therefore, the supersofts are the unwanted tire this weekend. I’m surprised the Sauber drivers took so many supersofts, although 5 sets of softs are a bit too much I think, but perhaps Renault are focusing more on race simulations.

    4. It makes sense I guess, teams like Haas and Renault won’t reach Q3 anyway. Do all qualifying on the US, pit early for a set of softs for a long stint and end it off with another set of the US.

      1. @xtwl, if they don’t make it to Q3 they can start on whatever they like of course. I’d say it’s better to keep all alternatives open, but i’m sure Renault & Haas have their reasons.

        1. @me4me Yes, so they would go US/S/US (all fresh sets).

    5. In last year’s race, most teams went for a 1 stopper. Massa did 33 laps on the Supersofts in his second stint (started on Softs), a few drivers did over 28 laps on the Supersofts in their first stint.

      Now, the Ultrasoft seems to have almost as much life as the Supersoft. So an US/S strategy should be viable.

      Now the question is, will a 2xUS/1xSS strategy work too? This is Canada, so unlike the 2 previous GPs, an extra stop might be worth it if it ¡s faster. And depending on the weather, a one-stopper US/S could be marginal enough to cause a repeat of 2012. So even a SS/S strategy could work (and with just 4-6 tenths between the SS and US tyres, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Mercedes or a Red Bull setting their Q2 time with a SS tyre, they have the pace to get into Q3 with a slower tyre).

      Maybe we won’t see as much tyre craziness as in previous GPs, but there’s still room for different strategies to work.

      1. ColdFly F1 (@)
        31st May 2016, 13:29

        I don’t think anybody will do Q2 on the SS, @casjo.
        As your most likely strategies are US/US/SS (in any order) or US/S. If you start on the SS you all but commit to a 2-stopper, or a (suboptimal) SS/S strategy.
        If you start on US you keep the 1-stop (US/S) and 2-stop (US/US/SS or US/US/S) options open. Therefore, the common sense top-10 strategy is to start on US (I doubt anybody gets into Q3 on S)!

        1. They said SS not S to get in Q3, like Ric just did in Monaco.

      2. They have to use the soft tires in the race, right?

        1. ColdFly F1 (@)
          31st May 2016, 15:29

          No – @f1infigures
          (in a dry race) They have to use (at least) 2 different compounds out of the 3 available.
          Thus they can use US/SS/US (nice attacking strategy, which the tyres might just cope with).

          1. @coldfly I think @f1infigures is right. Since usually Pirelli picks 2 different tyres compound as mandatory, it does not matter which 2 of the three you run during the race, you will always have one of the mandatory. But it seems they have picked twice S (hence why no team has fewer than 2 S) so I guess they should run at least one set of S.

            Strange rule, didn’t know they could pick up twice the same compound and it lowers the interest of having 3 compounds.

            1. There is a very useful Youtube video about the current tire rules (https://youtu.be/kgERH1gWF1s). I believe it also mentions the possibility that the race compounds are not necessarily the same.

              It’s a bit weird for Pirelli to pick the same tire twice (this is indeed backed up by the fact that all drivers have at least 2 sets of softs and some drivers have no supersofts). It probably means that the standard strategy is US-S, and that we don’t get to see the more aggressive US-SS strategy, which I think is a pity.

            2. ColdFly F1 (@)
              31st May 2016, 20:13

              thanks @jeanrien. I didn’t notice that Pirelli picked the S tyre twice as race tyre.
              That’s a huge pity; I would have loved to see US/S fight against US/SS/US strategies (I don’t think a US/SS would ever work under normal conditions).

    6. Given how the Ultra Soft performed on Sunday in terms of number of laps, the Super Soft seems a bit superfluous

      1. Not every place will work like Monaco though.

    7. People shouldn’t judge the performance of the ultra softs based on Monaco. Monaco is known for letting tyres go on for much longer than normal, or perform differently, due to its unique characteristics.

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