If you’re still bitter about how Formula 1 is so focused on tire strategies, perhaps a better understanding of what it takes to operate such compounds will help with that.
Let’s face it, in recent years, it seems that any race that wasn’t decided by Mercedes’ superior power units, was then tilted in favor of whoever put less wear on their tires.
Put a fresh set of super-softs on and you’ll be catching up to the car in front in no time. In a way, it makes it so the drivers can’t really race as hard as they can at all times, but we’ve grown accustomed to it.
Besides, the Italian tire manufacturer has become better at making its compounds last longer, with this season proving to be a huge improvement when it comes to tire wear over the previous two.
So then what can McLaren-Honda’s support crew team chief, Tom Briggs, tell us about the Pirellis they use? For starters, they can’t really do anything to the tires other than just race them. Furthermore, the guys from Pirelli constantly check the rubber after practices, although we assume they do this for every team, not just McLaren.
As long as the tire is given a clean bill of health, it will make it onto the car for either practice runs, qualifying or racing.