New Austria track surface tough for tyres – Symonds

2016 Austrian Grand Prix

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Williams expects the resurfaced Red Bull Ring will make it much harder to manage tyre use during Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix.

The circuit has been extensively resurfaced ahead of the upcoming race. Williams chief technical officer Pat Symonds says this plus an uncertain weather forecast could make for a challenging weekend.

“We will see a couple of significant differences,” said Symonds. “The first is the weather, which is predicted to be unsettled throughout Friday and Saturday, with current forecasts showing Sunday as the only potentially dry day.”

“Perhaps more significantly is the fact that the circuit has been completely resurfaced. In the recent European F3 race, teams reported that it was more severe on tyres, which makes the prospect of a dry race following damp practice sessions even more challenging.”

“That being said, we would expect to see a two-stop race in Austria and the selected tyre choices seem to reflect that. Whatever conditions are thrown at us I have every confidence that the team will come through to gather a strong haul of points.”

The last three rounds of the championship have all been won using single-stop tyre strategies, despite a rules change over the winter which was targeted at increasing the number of pit stops.

2016 Austrian Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
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    7 comments on “New Austria track surface tough for tyres – Symonds”

    1. Ferrari have stocked up Ultrasofts.. May be not such a good choice then..

      1. Well, at least the pit box is one of the sortest of the calendar.

      2. well…. Wiliiams still predict a two stopper, and I’m assuming that with a kind of US, US, SS strategy in mind. Which Ferrari can pull out of the bag.

      3. It probably doesn’t matter much. Everyone will have 3 sets of US, 2 sets of SS and 1 set of S for the race. The only difference is that they will have to do their FP runs on US, so it will be harder for them to do long runs. Maybe they will focus more on qualifying.

      4. Easy…..five stop strategy…..sorted.

    2. What a beautiful track with all the new upgrades. A smart place for fans to view much of the track from western grandstands too. They have done it right. Next years cars will be outrageous here.

      1. If they’re looking at cutting lap times by 4 seconds then maybe next year there will be a lap of nearly 1 minute.

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