Pirelli hopes to make Russian GP a 2- or 3-stopper

Pirelli motorsport chief Paul Hembery hopes that softer tyre nominations for this weekend’s Russian Grand Prix will make the race a two- or three-stopper, and avoid a repeat of last year’s processional affair.

Formula One’s sole tyre supplier made a deliberately conservative choice ahead of its maiden visit to Sochi Autodrom, which allowed most of the field to stop only once on the soft and medium compounds.

In an effort to increase tyre degradation and spice up the racing, Pirelli has selected the two softest P-Zeros in its range this year.

“There were a number of question marks that we faced coming to the Sochi circuit for the first time last year – as is inevitably the case with any new circuit – but we have since been able to collect extra data that means we have more information for 2015,” said Hembery.

“As a result, we have gone a step softer with the tyre nomination this year to help us get back into the two to three pit stop window, which is what we desire for every race.

“However, both ourselves and all the teams are learning more about this circuit all the time, despite the advancement of simulation technology. The track has quite a wide variety of different corners, so it makes for a good all-round test for the tyres, with the drivers able to benefit from the extra speed of the supersoft this year.”

Prior to this weekend’s trip to the Black Sea’s Olympic resort, the softs/supersofts combination has been used four times in 2015: in Monaco, Canada, Austria, and Singapore.

The latter event turned out to be a challenging outing for Mercedes, which struggled to extract the most out of Pirelli’s red-banded and yellow-walled tyres. The championship leaders have already said they are worried about a potential repeat of their problems at Sochi.

Chris Medland's Russian Grand Prix preview

Red Bull: Burning bridges everywhere

F1i technical expert Nicolas Carpentiers takes us through exclusive pictures of Renault's power unit

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter