Pirelli reveals cuts in the tyres after opening day in Qatar
Formula 1’s official tyre supplier Pirelli has revealed new concerns over potential tyre failures after the first day of practice for the Qatar Grand Prix.
McLaren driver Oscar Piastri set a new track record at Lusail and claimed the top spot in the sole practice session – making a perfect start to a crucial weekend.
Piastri’s time of 1m20.055s on the P Zero Red soft beat the previous fastest lap of Lusail (1m20.520s) set by Red Bull driver Max Verstappen to claim pole last year.
However, fresh concerns emerged after the sprint qualifying session as Formula 1’s official tyre supplier Pirelli has revealed new concerns over potential tyre failures.
It comes after several deep gravel cuts were spotted in the rubber of tyres that were inspected by the Italian company after Friday's proceedings took place at the Losail International Circuit.
Reflecting on the issue, Pirelli’s chief engineer Simone Berra added: “At the end of the sessions, we saw cuts on the tread of some of the tyres caused by gravel pulled onto the circuit by cars that went off into the new gravel traps alongside the track.
“While the damage isn’t enough to cause any loss of pressure, we’re going to be a close eye on the condition of the tyres during tomorrow’s running.”
Pirelli has brought the hardest compounds in its range to Qatar: C1 as Hard, C2 as Medium and C3 as Soft. As this is a Sprint weekend, each driver will be supplied with 2 sets of Hard, 4 of Medium and 6 of Soft.
“Today we definitely had better track conditions compared to last year, when the wind had deposited a lot of sand on the surface, which affected grip considerably.
“The current grip levels, combined with the evolution of the cars since last year, meant that the lap times were not only lower than the equivalent sessions from last year, but also than the simulations.
“In the single free practice session, teams chose to get to grips with the track using the hard compound – leaving them with one set for the race on Sunday – before concluding the session on the soft.
“The difference between the soft tyre and the C2 medium was clearly seen in sprint qualifying, with a performance gap of around six to seven tenths of a second, while the run plans that the teams were carrying out in FP1 make it harder to define the gap to the hard compound. However, it would appear to be smaller than the predicted simulations.
“On their flying qualifying laps the drivers were able to recover performance from one lap to the next, especially on the medium tyre, thanks also to track evolution that was more pronounced with every lap,” Berra said.
