Teams favour ultrasoft tyres for Singapore night race

The FIA has revealed the tyre choices made by each of the ten teams on the grid for the upcoming Singapore Grand Prix on September 17.

Teams are awarded a total of 13 sets of dry tyres for the race. They have to take at least one set of each compound offered by Pirelli for the race. In the case of Singapore, the three options are soft, supersoft and ultrasoft. However, each driver can make up the balance of their allocation how they like.

The overwhelming preference among the drivers for Singapore is unquestionably the ultrasoft compound.

Red Bull, Force India, Williams, McLaren and Renault all opt for ten sets of ultras. In each case the drivers have gone for two sets of supersofts, and just one of the yellow-walled soft compound.

Ferrari and Sauber see split decisions among their drivers. Kimi Raikkonen and Marcus Ericsson go with the majority, but their respective team mates make a tweak to the format.

Sebastian Vettel has decided to take only one supersoft tyre, and requested a second soft compound instead. Pascal Wehrlein has also opted for two of the yellow-marked tyres. However, in his case he's dropped one of the ultras to make room in his Pirelli assignment.

There's also a difference of opinion at Mercedes. Lewis Hamilton will arrive in Singapore with two sets each of soft and supersoft tyres, and nine sets of ultras making up the remainder.

His teammate Valtteri Bottas has asked for three sets of supersofts. That leaves him with one set of softs and nine ultrasofts. It's the same strategy chosen by both Toro Rosso drivers.

Haas has gone away from the general consensus. Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen are set to receive just eight sets of ultrasofts for the race weekend. They'll take four sets of supersofts - more than anyone else - as well as the mandatory single set of softs.

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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.