Red Bull and Ferrari wary of ultrasofts in Mexico tyre choice

Andrew Lewin 17/10/2017 at 17:0617/10/2017 at 17:54

With most teams opting to stockpile extra ultrasofts for the Mexico Grand Prix, the Red Bull and Ferrari drivers have conspicuously gone against the flow with the tyre selections.

Each driver gets a total of 13 sets of dry tyres to use during the race weekend. All of them receive one set each of the three compounds offered by Pirelli for the event. For the Mexico Grand Prix, that line-up consists of soft, supersoft and ultrasoft tyres.

After that it's up to each driver and their engineers to decide the tyre distribution they request from the tyre manufacturer.

Many teams have requested nine or even ten sets of the purple-marked ultras to use at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez on October 10. However, Red Bull has asked for just six sets for both Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen. The remainder of the allocation consists of three sets of softs and four supersofts.

Ferrari want seven sets of ultras. Sebastian Vettel will take just the one mandatory set of soft tyres and make up the rest with five sets of supersofts. Kimi Raikkonen prefers to have an additional set of soft tyres on hand, leaving him just four supersofts.

In a nutshell: which tyres for the US Grand Prix?

Sauber and Haas both take eight sets of ultrasofts for their drivers. With the exception of Kevin Magnussen they split the remainder of the allocation with two sets of soft and three of supersofts. The Dane prefers just one set of the yellow-walled compound.

Both Mercedes drivers take nine sets of ultras, Lewis Hamilton requesting just one set of softs and three supersofts. Valtteri Bottas prefers two of both, the same strategy adopted by Force India's Sergio Perez.

His team mate Esteban Ocon is one of nine drivers to ask for ten sets of ultrasoft tyres for Mexico. Ocon also takes two supersofts and just the single mandatory set of softs. Lance Stroll, Stoffel Vandoorne, Daniil Kvyat, Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz all have the same. So does newcomer Brendon Hartley, who inherits the choice made for Pierre Gasly.

The remaining drivers - Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso - take two sets of softs and just one of the supersofts to go with their bumper allocation of ultras.