Teams see purple with Baku tyre selections

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Ultrasofts are very much the order of the day for teams heading to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix at the end of the month.

Pirelli has given everyone the choice of soft, supersoft or ultrasoft compounds to choose from. But the overwhelming choice is the purple-coloured ultras. In particular, Ferrari and Sauber have both gone for aggressive strategies on the Baku City Street Circuit.

Teams take 13 sets of tyres to each event. Each driver gets one set of each compound by default, and after that it's up to them to choose.

Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen, Marcus Ericsson and Charles Leclerc are tall taking ten sets of ultrasofts in total. The only other driver to make that call is McLaren's Stoffel Vandoorne.

Vandoorne's team mate Fernando Alonso is taking nine sets of ultras. That's the same as Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, Force India's Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez, and Haas' Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen.

Red Bull drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen have opted for eight sets of the the ultras, as have Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin at Williams and Toro Rosso duo Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley.

Renault is opting for a different strategy at the next race, with Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz having just seven sets of the ultrasoft tyres at their disposal for the race. They're taking four sets of the supersofts instead/ Only Stroll matches them on the red-walled compound.

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No driver is taking more than two sets of the basic soft compound. Seven drivers - Bottas, Vettel, Stroll, Grosjean, Magnussen, Alonso, Vandoorne and Leclerec - are just taking the single default set in their hand luggage.

Pirelli motorsports director Mario Isola said that Baku was "a bit strange" because of its mix of tight corners and long straights.

“You have some sectors that are very, very fast," he told Motorsport.come. "But you also have some parts of the track under the sun, and some parts in shadow.

"The ultrasoft in Baku is a less aggressive choice compared to Shanghai," he insisted. "The severity of the circuit is lower, and also the tarmac roughness."

Pirelli’s tyre compounds this season have been designed to be two steps softer than 2017.

Accordingly, tyre strategy has played a key role in the first three races of the season. Red Bull's decision to pit for fresh tyres under the safety car in China clinched a spectacular race win for Ricciardo.

“I was happy to see that Ricciardo won using all the three compounds," Isola noted. "It’s good that everybody was able to choose any of the three compounds. The ultrasoft was not bad - warmer conditions helped to reduce graining."

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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.