Mercedes selects notably different tyres to rivals for Spa

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Pirelli has revealed the tyre choices made by drivers and teams for the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

The race in Belgium is the first after the mid-season break, taking place on the 28th August. Pirelli has nominated the medium, soft and supersoft tyre for the race at Spa, having supplied the medium and soft compounds for last year's race.

While the top teams often have similar choices, Mercedes has clearly taken a different direction to its rivals as it opts for a majority of soft tyres rather than supersofts. Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have just four sets of supersofts each, while Red Bull has selected six sets for each of its drivers and Ferrari seven sets.

The Ferrari choice is the most aggressive, with just one set of medium tyres for each of its drivers, despite Sebastian Vettel suffering a failure late in last year's race after trying to run long on the soft tyre. In comparison, Rosberg and the Red Bulls have four sets of medium tyres while Hamilton three sets. A set of mediums also has to be kept available for use in the race, as do a set of softs.

The full tyre selections are below:

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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.