Pirelli announces United States GP tyre allocations

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Formula 1's exclusive tyre supplier Pirelli has revealed details of drivers' tyre allocations for next week's United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas.

Pirelli is offering a selection of tyres from the C2, C3 and C4 compound categories - the same as they did for this weekend's Mexican Grand Prix at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.

Among the front runners, the most popular choice is for eight sets of the softest compound, the red-marked C4. In contrast, Mercedes and Ferrari requested only seven sets for Mexico while Red Bull went for nine.

Pirelli reveals drivers' Mexican GP tyre choices

Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas, Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen and Alexander Albon all make that selection for COTA. Hamilton and Vettel then top up their full allocation with two sets of the hard C2 and three of the medium C3, a decision shared by McLaren drivers Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris.

The other front runners opt for four mediums and take just the one default set of the hard tyre for the weekend. It makes Bottas, Verstappen and Albon the only drivers in the field to have four sets of the yellow-walled compound at their disposal in Austin.

The sole exception among the front runners is Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, who has requested nine sets of the soft tyre leaving him with just three sets of the medium and one of the hard.

That's exactly the same choice as Haas' Romain Grosjean, Alfa Romeo's Kimi Raikkonen, Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat and Williams' Robert Kubica.

Other drivers taking nine sets of softs - but evening up the hard and medium allocation - include Kevin Magnussen, Racing Point pair Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll, Antonio Giovinazzi, Pierre Gasly and George Russell.

Renault break the mould by being the only team on the grid to request 10 sets of the soft compound tyres for the weekend for Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg.

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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.