Dave Ryan, the racing director of Manor Racing, believes the team should be looking to make more aggressive tyre choices going forward after being rather conservative so far in 2016.
Both Pascal Wehrlein and Rio Haryanto have had widely different tyre choices in the first five races of the season so far, and that will continue into the Monaco Grand Prix with the team choosing far fewer of the Ultrasoft Pirelli tyres than all of the other drivers.
Ryan admits that in hindsight that the Manor team could and should have chosen a different combination of tyre in the races so far in 2016, but insists the decision to choose the tyres they have will be decided for their benefit rather than to match what anyone else has chosen.
“We made the choices based on what we though was right at that time,” revealed Ryan. “There is no disputing, if you look at tyre choices other teams have made, that they have been a bit more aggressive than we have been. Maybe we need to go in the same direction.
“But we’re comfortable with what we have. We feel we had the right tyres available at the last race [in Spain]. And you’ve got to remember as well that at the end of 40 minutes in FP1 you’ve got to throw one set of tyres away.
“At the end of that session you have to give out two sets. Another two sets you have to give away at the end of each other session so you go through them pretty quick.”
“If you look at anything in hindsight, you say we could have done that differently. And if you ask me ‘will the team make the same tyre choices again for those first few races?’, obviously not, based on what everyone else did.
“But we are allowed to make our own minds up and that’s what we’ve done and we believed we were right at the time.
“Going forward we’ve got the same opportunities as everyone else to pick tyres. What dictates getting it right is what the winning team selects, isn’t? It kind of flavours it to a certain extent. But we’re kind of comfortable where we are, so we’ll see.”
