F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Supersofts to be used in Austin for first time

Pirelli has announced its tyre compound choices for the United States Grand Prix, with the supersoft to be used in Austin for the first time.

The race at the Circuit of the Americas takes place in late October, with teams having to make their compound choices 14 weeks ahead of the grand prix weekend. Pirelli has previously selected the hard and medium tyres for the first two editions of the race in Austin, while 2014 and 2015 saw the medium and softs chosen.

With three tyre compounds available to teams for each race weekend this season, Pirelli has gone for the more aggressive option with the supersoft nominated alongside the soft and medium compound.

One set of the supersoft tyres is mandatory for use in Q3 should a driver reach that stage, while one set of the soft and one set of the medium must be available for the race, although only one of those two sets must be used. Teams are free to choose the remaining ten sets of tyres required for the race weekend as they wish.

Starting from the British Grand Prix, Pirelli also now communicates its recommended maximum stint length for each tyre compound during the race, while acknowledging "it is the responsibility of each team to define its own race strategies based on its own wear data".

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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.