Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsPirelli

Pirelli hoping for warm weather in Austria

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Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery is hoping warm weather will ensure this weekend's Austrian Grand Prix is a two-stop race.

The Canadian Grand Prix took place in relatively cool conditions and saw the majority of teams opt for one-stop strategies in the race despite the soft and supersoft compounds having been nominated. With Hembery admitting the softer compounds are still proving too hard this year, he's wary that similar conditions in Austria would lead to another one-stopper.

“Austria ends the run of soft and supersoft nominations that we see towards the middle of the season, on quite a diverse variety of tracks," Hembery said. "The tyre strategy will depend on some extent to the weather: if it is warm we are more likely to see two stops, whereas if it’s cool the balance might shift towards a one-stopper.

"Rain is also a distinct possibility in Styria at this time of year, as we saw during free practice last season, so the teams will basically have to be prepared for everything."

And Hembery reiterates Pirelli's potential plans to make changes to certain compound nominations later in the year.

"This year, the drivers head to the Red Bull Ring with real data about the track for the first time, which will help them find the most efficient way to use the tyres.

"Obviously our aim is always to have between two and three stops at every race, so this is something that we will monitor carefully in future when it comes to nominations: we do have the possibility to make some minor changes if required. We’re only expecting a small time gap between the two compounds in Austria, so this opens up a number of different possibilities as to how to run the race strategy.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.