R23 – Tyre Selection

The Qatar Grand Prix is the penultimate race of the season and the last to be run to the Sprint format. It comes just one week on from Las Vegas, 13,000 kilometres as the crow flies from this week’s venue in Lusail.
Both races and indeed the final one in Abu Dhabi, take place at night, but the weather could not be more different.

Conditions were cold on track in the Nevadan desert, but in Qatar drivers will have to deal with heat and humidity similar to that experienced in Singapore.
The Middle Eastern track is particularly demanding for the tyres and that has led to the introduction of an exceptional measure.

The three hardest compounds in the Pirelli range have been selected for Doha. The C1 (Hard), C2 (Medium) and C3 (Soft) are the obvious choice at a track where tyres are subjected to energy levels similar to those experienced in Suzuka and indeed, these are the only compounds that have ever been run at the this Grand Prix.

The majority of the corners at the Lusail track are high speed, which means the tyres have little time to recover and the section which works them the hardest is from turns 12 and 14. The track surface which is quite smooth has usually led to graining which contributes to producing a high wear rate on the tyres.

The Lusail circuit was originally conceived as a motorcycle racing track, which is clear from its rather unique layout; fast and twisty with a straight that is over a kilometre in length.
The circuit on the outskirts of Doha, presents the drivers, cars and tyres with some unusual challenges. It boasts 16 corners, ten of them right handers while its desert location means that sand often gets blown onto the track, inevitably influencing track evolution. In an effort to prevent this, there are several areas of artificial grass around the circuit.

All drivers started the Qatar Grand Prix on the Medium tyre with the exception of Nico Hulkenberg who opted for Hards. The one-stop strategy proved the most popular, with drivers looking to extend the first stint on the yellow-banded tyre, managing to make it last well past the half race distance.