John N
Mario Isola, motorsport director with Pirelli, expects teams to run two-stop strategies at the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Barcelona has traditionally been a track attracting high tire wear due to its lengthy, high-load corners that have previously led to races with a wider range of strategies than at other circuits.
Pirelli has opted to bring their three hardest compounds to the weekend’s action, with their C1 compound as the hard, C2 as the medium, and C3 as the soft. Isola acknowledged that teams would already have plenty of data about racing at Barcelona but added that there might be room for variation this weekend.
“The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is the best-known circuit on the calendar for the drivers,” said Isola. “It contains a wide range of turns, making it a perfect testing venue. It has a bit of everything—the very technical final sector being significant when looking after the tires.
As a result, the teams will have an opportunity to assess progress since the start of the season, although weather conditions will be much warmer and there will probably be more running on hard tires than in testing.”
It will be interesting to see how this affects the race. In the past, Barcelona has traditionally been a two-stopper, but perhaps with new generation tires on board this year, some teams may try for one stop.”
Lewis Hamilton won last year’s Spanish Grand Prix after switching to an alternate strategy that saw him stop for a fresh set of tires in the closing stages.
That additional grip allowed him to reel in his gap to Max Verstappen at the front and overtake him in the race’s final laps.
Pirelli will also continue to do tire tests throughout the season, with Ferrari recently having caused controversy for reputedly running two different floors when testing prototype 2023 rubber at Imola last month, although they were cleared of any wrongdoing.
