It's Bahrain Grand Prix week and Pirelli's primer tells you all you need to know about the rubber that will be hitting the road next weekend at Sakhir.
On a track that puts a car's traction to the task and also challenges compounds through its day-to-evening changing temperatures, F1's exclusive tyre supplier has nominated the medium, soft and supersoft compounds.
The selection is actually the same as last year but Pirelli's compounds are all a step softer this season.
"Bahrain provides a very different challenge to Australia, but one of the things it has in common is that is quite a stop-start circuit characterised by longitudinal rather than lateral loads, which also means that it is rear-limited in particular," explains Pirelli's Mario Isola.
"Because of the abrasive surface and also thermal degradation we would expect more than one pit stop for most drivers, especially as the entire tyre range is softer this year and Bahrain has produced a variety of interesting strategies in the past.
"The race schedule, with track temperatures that fall considerably during the evening, means that teams need to maximise their learning from the sessions that are most representative and draw the most effective conclusions from the unusual track conditions in the evening."
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