ANALYSIS: Pirelli set to anyalse Hamilton’s and Sainz’s puncture in Milan

Race event, ULTIMATE Web3GP (WGPX)

Following last year’s tyre issues, Pirelli’s products have shown hardly any degradation and wear over the Qatar Grand Prix weekend. F1Technical’s senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers his tyre analysis.

Having bagged his ninth victory of the year and the first one in the dry since the Red Bull Ring, four-time world champion Max Verstappen sounded a positive note after Red Bull had saved his weekend with an extensive setup overhaul.

Following a low-key showing in Qatar F1 Sprint, Max Verstappen bounced back with an eye-catching performance in the main qualifying for Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix. The newly-crowned four-time world champion looked strong from the get-go, with Red Bull having made several tweaks to his RB20 following the sprint race.

The Dutchman needed a quick lap in the dying seconds of Q3 to beat George Russell, which he was able to deliver to secure his first pole position since the Austrian Grand Prix.

However, he was stripped of his pole position for a yellow flag incident. The Dutchman was upset by the decision, but he regained the lead at the start of the race, and did not let the victory slip through his fingers despite three safety car interventions.

The four-time F1 world champion was joined on the podium by Charles Leclerc, who took second for Ferrari and by Oscar Piastri, who secured third for McLaren.

This was the 63rd win of Verstappen’s career, the second out of three editions of this Grand Prix, while for Red Bull it was win number 122. Piastri took his tenth podium finish today from 45 race starts.

Tyre strategy

All the drivers opted to start on the yellow-banded medium tyre with the exception of Nico Hulkenberg (Haas) who went for the white-walled hard rubber.

Based on the long-run simulations, Pirelli had expected drivers to stop only once, and the one-stop turned out to be the preferred choice for all teams. Having been involved in a first-race incident, Williams racer Franco Colapinto and Alpine driver Esteban Ocon retired from the action at Turn 1.

Hulkenberg was also involved in that collision, which forced him to pit at the end of the first lap to take on a new set of hards. In addition, Lance Stroll also pitted for new tyres after his own incident on the first lap.

Apart from the three drivers involved in collisions on the opening lap, who had to pit immediately, everyone tried to extend the first stint on the Mediums as much as possible, getting to over half-distance.

However, there were a few exceptions: George Russell pitted after 23 laps as he attempted to cover any undercut manoeuvre from Oscar Piastri. However, with Mercedes having made a mistake during the pit stop, he fell back in the order, leaving him behind the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso.

Valtteri Bottas elected to switch to the hard tyre on the following lap and Haas brought Kevin Magnussen in on Lap 27, with the Dane also receiving a fresh set of hards.

For the rest of the field, the run of pit stops began on lap 34, some coming in when the race was neutralised, to switch to the Hard tyre. Hulkenberg had already pitted to take on Mediums after lap 30.

The Safety Car made three appearances. At the last two, the chance to pit costing less time, induced Williams and Racing Bulls to gamble on the Soft, but it did not pay off, as the characteristics of this track meant the C3 proved to have too much of a drop in performance.

Reflecting on the race weekend, Pirelli’s motorsport director Mario Isola added: “This track has some rather peculiar characteristics: it is very severe in terms of the energy exerted on the tyres and in terms of tread wear, while not leading to a drop in performance.

“Clearly, this combination of factors can create a situation in which wear levels reach their limit, while the teams however try to lengthen the stint as much as possible in order to get the best possible result and we saw that confirmed today.

“In yesterday’s Sprint, in some cases the level of wear had reached 100% on cars that had started with about one third the fuel load they took on board for today’s start. At this track, the left front is the tyre subjected to the greatest load and it’s no coincidence that both punctures were on this tyre. When you reach a certain level, then even the smallest piece of debris can cause a situation like the one we witnessed today.

“As for the rest, the performance levels of the most used compounds – the C1 and the C2 – were very similar and, as mentioned earlier, with hardly any degradation. Therefore, the level of tyre management required was practically zero, with the drivers able to push as much as they liked, even though they were in fact running a one-stop strategy.”

The second safety car was deployed after Valtteri Bottas ran over a rear-view mirror that laid on the main straight, which left lots of debris on the track. Just moments after Bottas’ incident, Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz suffered punctures, which forced them to crawl back into the pits.

While the timing of the punctures indicate that those were induced by the debris lying on the start-finish straight, Pirelli does not rule out any other factors, with Isola revealing that the damages tyres will be sent to Pirelli’s headquarters in Milan for evaluation.

“As expected, this was a very busy weekend for us. In today’s race there were two front left tyre punctures on Sainz’s and Hamilton’s cars. As per procedure, we will now analyse in detail the damaged tyres, as well as a selection of other tyres.

“Along with the telemetry data we have acquired and on-board footage from the cars, they will be sent to our laboratory in Milan. In addition, we will carry out all the usual checks on the stresses to which the tyres were subjected.”