Pirelli have said that today’s exciting Chinese Grand Prix is just the sort of race they were aiming for when designing their range of PZero tyres for the Formula 1 grid.
The race in Shanghai featured a series of overtaking moves throughout its 56 lap duration as teams tried both two- and three-stop strategies in order to manage tyre wear.
“The races just seem to keep on getting better and better this year!” exclaimed Paul Hembery, the Pirelli Motorsport Director. “I think nobody watching really knew how it was going to finish until the very end, which is exactly what we wanted to achieve when we started our Formula One project.
“We saw an interesting split of strategies, with McLaren managing to make three stops work for Hamilton but Red Bull coming very close to winning with just two. Compared to Malaysia we experienced a lot less degradation, with some drivers managing to get 20 laps or more out of the hard tyre.
“We didn't experience an excessive amount of the toffee-like 'marbles' out on track and it was clear that this race was won and lost on tyre strategy. The end result was that all the leading runners were very close together at the finish, and the people who had looked after their tyres best took the top results.
“It's hard to imagine how we can top this at the next grand prix in Turkey, but we're certainly going to try to have something just as good.”
