Why Pireli’s new C6 shook Emola GP qualifying – and how it can change the race

“C6S was difficult to understand,” Alex albon After receiving the seventh qualification for Emilia Romagna Grand Prix,

To an extent, it was a matter of bringing here. The F1 teams spend a large proportion of their annual budget on research and simulation to eliminate uncertainty, but pre -proclamation is the enemy of good racing.

Pirelli added C6 to his family at the beginning of the season, so that an even more soft compound option can be provided. It was originally slated for introduction in Monaco, with a scene to roll it in Montreal, Singapore and Las Vegas if its first appearance went well.

This changed when it became clear that the changes in the rest of the compounds brought their performance and lifespan very close together, making one-stop race default a strategic option. Pirelli brought his debut for Emola, partly because it was gravity towards softening a step compared to last year after the earlier phase, but Mainly to see if it will enable the company to ‘skip’ compounds in future events,

Does Pirelli-and F1 and FIA want to achieve, there is a large variety of strategic options, where the difference between the one-stop and the two-stop race is a less clear cut, and where teams can use the difference between compounds to make offset. The nirvana for which he is for the audience is “peak and effect”, where the offset fresher enables drivers to follow the final laps on the tire.

But there is a difficult balance to strike. Go very soft and you are funnel in a situation where the most soft tires are used only in merit.

It appeared to be the case in Emola, although there were some positives. Both Aston Martin Driver and Mercedes, George Russell Used medium tires, estimating them to be better – but in doing so, he had a potential compromise for the race.

This is one of the scenarios who wanted to do Pirelli engineers, although it probably did not reach that result. A soft tires that struggled to live in a full lap,

“We have seen it in a lot of tracks both this year and last year,” Elbon said. “Soft tires are generally better in low -speed corners.

“But even though you take Suzuka this year, the hard tires felt best in sector 1 (which is medium to high speed). There is a little trade, and around this track it seems that the C6 just tips on the edge.

“There are a lot of high-speed corners for this and it is just falling a little bit. It is a bit sensitive to this track type.

“This is not uncommon – obviously, we (as F1 as a whole) are also trying to create a slight decline in the race. So I think we are just going to soft tires – but now at a point where sometimes it is also getting very soft for merit.”

The mood music of drivers and several team owners was that the C6 was losing so much performance during a single flying lap that it could be better to use the medium instead – C5, the first softening of the pyeli. But under the modern F1 regime, where drivers are allowed only 13 sets of slic tires in a ‘normal’ (ie non-spint) weekend, drawn from three available compounds, it gives a sacrifice that was ready to make only a few teams.

“The whole weekend has been a bit misleading, which was better, medium or soft,” Fernando Alonso Aston Martin’s medium-tier pant. “So, out of confusion, we decided to do a soft, a medium in each of the (qualifying) sessions.

“In this way, we covered every possibility. I think we were competitors with both, to be honest.

“Everything is a result and everything is an advantage and disadvantage. To be able to do so in merit, in such a program, you have to get rid of a hards.

“So, I think everyone has two hard for tomorrow. We have only one, but this is the condition that you need to make at a point.

“This is a difficult track to overtake and we give some priority in Saturday. Let’s see what it pays.”

To some extent, the trade-closing of Risk vs. reward is a question of perspective. Max VerustapaneThose who finished second on C6, decided that gambling was not worth it.

“I didn’t want to do this because I wanted to keep the right tire for tomorrow,” he said. “I have been on pole a few times this year, but after that, it doesn’t really help much. We have to make sure that we score points in the race, this is the most important thing.”

Complex factor-and Pirelli’s engineering is against the hopes of strategic diversity-it is that Emola’s long pitlane naturally pushes the teams towards a one-stop race because the time lost in the pits (about 28 seconds) essentially reduces the track position that is difficult to recruit.

“We knew that going to Q3, we were going to have cars using C5, because the C5 is fast at the end of this week,” Carlos SainzWhich went to the fastest among all in Q2 before finishing Q3 in the sixth. “Fernando used it, Russell used it and they, if anything, is better than what they should, prove it again (that the C5 is sharp because it faces a low decline in the same lap).

“They did what everyone thought, but at the same time they are compromising the race yesterday with a potentially used tire. It is very important for us in the race to sacrifice a C5.

“I must have done this, but the team was very disciplined to not use it. But then, the P5 was maximum today – a good lap on C5 may have carried us three or four tenth part, but only one position will be ahead, so it is what it is.”

Pirelli is already talking about bringing C6 with Baku, originally planned, and later moving ahead with its concept of leaving the compounds later in the later year. If drivers who sacrifice C5S for a better grid position have no negative aspect, of course, it can just change …