F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Soft, supersoft and ultrasoft for Austria

Pirelli has announced the tyre compound choices for the Austrian Grand Prix, with the softest three compounds being nominated.

This year teams are able to choose from a selection of three tyre compounds, with complete freedom to pick 10 of the 13 sets per driver. The other three sets are defined by Pirelli, with a set of the softest compound required for Q3 and two sets nominated for the race, of which only one must be used.

The Austrian Grand Prix will see the soft, supersoft and ultrasoft tyre used for the third time in four races. The same selection will be used in both Monaco and Canada, thought the medium, soft and supersoft has been nominated for Azerbaijan.

Pirelli has made one set of soft and one set of supersoft tyres mandatory for the race selection, with only one of those sets having to be used during the race.

The ultrasoft tyre is a new compound for this season, with its first outing set to be the Monaco Grand Prix. Teams must make their final selections eight weeks in advance of the race.

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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.