RW 5 – Tyre Selection

The Chinese Grand Prix is back on the calendar after a five year break, meaning that 2019 was the last year Formula 1 raced in Shanghai on that occasion hosting celebrations to mark the 1000th event in the history of motorsport’s most prestigious world championship.

All 16 editions have been run on the Shanghai International Circuit, designed by Hermann Tikle, with its outline loosely based on the Chinese “shang” character.
The 5.451 kilometre-long track boasts 16 corners, many of them very slow for example section through turns 1 to 3 and 6 to 14, while others are high speed such as the esses through turns 7 and 8. There are two long straights, both used as a DRS zone.

Based on simulations and past data, the tyres are subjected to lateral and longitudinal forces here that fall into the medium category, with the outside of the tyre, especially on the left hand side of the car, wearing the most.
The trio of tyres chosen back in the winter for Shanghai is in the midrange with the C2 as hard, C3 medium and C4 as soft.
Nominally, that’s the same selection as in 2019 but the scenario is very different. Five years ago, the 13 inch tyres were in use and were fitted to the previous generation of car.

Complicating it further is the fact that the Chinese Grand Prix is the first of six events this season running to the Sprint format, which itself has been slightly modified for this year in terms of running order of the sessions.
This now means there is only one practice session to find the right set-up for the cars, as well as figuring out the tyres.

Usually the Chinese Grand Prix is a two-stop race race, partly because there are several places to overtake such as braking into Turn 14 and then on the main straight as well as into turn 6. Just as Suzuka, the undercut is usually very effective on this track.