After the chaos of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Pirelli have gone for one of the strongest combination of their tyres for this weekends French Grand Prix.
This weekend’s race comes at a time when Pirelli desperately need a clean weekend with no failures to their tyres, after their catastrophic performance in Azerbaijan. Circuit Paul Ricard is luckily familiar territory for them, the venue hosting multiple Pirelli tests in the past, so it should be a plain-sailing weekend for the manufacturer.
Pirelli have chosen the C2, C3 and C4 compounds for this weekend, the same used in France two years ago and for the opening two rounds of this years championship. Tyre degradation is very low at the circuit so it will most likely be another one-stop race, it is likely that many drivers may try to make it to qualifying three on the medium tyre to help them go deeper into the race.
Pirelli’s Head of F1 and Car Racing, Mario Isola, highlighted the versatile combination being used this weekend and that a one-stop is probable.
“We’re back to the combination of tyres used for the first two races of this year, right in the middle of the range. This is the most versatile combination, well suited to a wide variety of different demands, and this is also what makes it a good match for the Paul Ricard circuit, which contains an interesting mix of corners.”
“This also makes Paul Ricard a good testing venue, and while we’ve not had a Formula 1 race there for two years, we’ve been testing next year’s 18-inch wet tyres at this track earlier in the season, and we also raced there last month in the GT World Challenge.”
“For France, we’re sticking with the same nomination we had at the last French Grand Prix, which resulted in a one-stopper for most of the drivers. However, we saw that there were a few different types of one-stopper that were run, giving rise to a number of distinct strategies.”
