Pirelli – 5 F1 drivers and teams ‘evenly matched’ in Barcelona grand prix practice

Following Friday’s free practice at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, Formula 1’s exclusive tyre supplier Pirelli noted the presence of five drivers from five different teams in the top five places, saying the grid looks “very evenly matched.” The quickest time was set by Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes (1’13”264) with fifth placed Max Verstappen in the Red Bull (1’13”504) making a gap of only 340 thousandths covering five drivers. In between were Carlos Sainz (1’13”286) in the Ferrari, Lando Norris in the McLaren (1’13”319) and the Alpine of Pierre Gasly (1’13”443).

Speaking about the P Zero tyres, Pirelli said the hard compound dominated the first session, with only six drivers (Piastri, Sargeant, Albon, Zhou, Magnussen and Bearman) not using the C1. In the second hour, drivers switched to the Soft, both in performance runs and longer stints, which is what the teams worked on towards the end of the session. Even the longest run of the day, 19 laps driven by Yuki Tsunoda in the Racing Bulls, was done on the C3.

Simone Berra, Pirelli’s chief engineer, said: “Barcelona always provides a stern test for all the parts that go to make up a Formula 1 car and the tyres are no exception to that rule! That was the case today, in high temperatures, with the track getting close to the 50 °C mark, which added further stress to the tyres that are already subjected to some of the highest lateral forces of the whole season.

“Honestly, we have not seen anything particularly surprising in terms of the performance of the three dry weather compounds, even if obviously we have not yet had a chance to study today’s data in detail. The performance difference over a flying lap seems to match the predictions – six to seven tenths between Hard and Medium and just over a second between Medium and Soft – and the C3 appears to be a possible option for the race, especially in terms of exploiting its performance advantage off the start line and over the opening laps, as indeed we saw last year.”