Pirelli confirms tyre line-up for Red Bull Ring

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Formula 1 tyre provider Pirelli has announced which three compounds it will be bringing to the Austrian Grand Prix weekend at the end of June.

The manufacturer will be offering teams a choice of soft, supersoft and ultrasoft tyres to choose between at the Red Bull Ring.

That's the same as last year. However, all of the 2018 compounds have been designed to be a step softer than last year's formulation.

All drivers get one set of each compound. After that, they get to select ten more sets to use over the race weekend.

At least one set each of the two softest compounds - in this case the supersofts and the ultras - have to be available to use in the 71-lap race.

Pirelli announces tyres on offer to teams for French GP

One set of the ultrasofts has to be kept back for the final round of qualifying.

The selection of tyres on offer in Austria is fast becoming Pirelli's 'default' line-up of compounds. The same choice is also on offer for this weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.

The three compounds were also the choice for the 2018 season opener in Melbourne. They'll be seen again at the French Grand Prix, the first time that F1 has visited the Paul Ricard Circuit since 1990.

The tyres being used in France have a slightly different design. The tyre tread is being reduced by by 0.4mm, in order to prevent the compounds from overheating on the new asphalt.

The same tread will also be used at Barcelona and Silverstone - but not at Spielberg.

Pirelli maintained a harder line-up for Bahrain, China and Spain. It went a step softer for Monaco and Canada, where both races will see the new pink hypersoft compounds in action.

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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.