P Zero Yellow soft tyre 0.6 seconds faster in China

Pirelli has taken its P Zero Yellow soft and P Zero White medium tyres to China for the forthcoming Grand Prix weekend, and it looks likely that the softer tyre will provide drivers with around 0.6 seconds per lap following Friday practice. Mercedes driver, Michael Schumacher used the P Zero Yellow to set the fastest time of the day during the second session, setting a time of 1:35:973 on his first flying lap. Pirelli said this display underlines the rapid warm-up of the soft compound.

The majority of the drivers chose to use the medium compound at the start of the second session, before progressively moving onto the soft tyre. Only the Red Bull pairing of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, along with Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg finished the second session on the P Zero White medium. Schumacher’s lap was significantly quicker than last year’s free practice two benchmark of 1:37:688, which was set on the 2011-specification soft tyre.
 
The first free practice session was held in variable conditions at the Shanghai circuit, meaning that the drivers ran mainly on the Cinturato Green intermediates while they carried out set-up work, with only Caterham using the Cinturato Blue wet at the start of the session. The teams then moved onto the slick compounds as the track dried out during the last 10 minutes of the hour and a half session. McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton went fastest on the P Zero White medium tyre, setting a time of 1:37:106 in the closing minutes of free practice one.
 
Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery said: “The rain-affected first session was mainly used by the teams to establish crossover points between the intermediate and the slick tyres, which could be of use if we see more rain over the weekend. We then had a very busy second session, as the teams all tried to make up for the dry running that they had lost in the morning, particularly when it came to testing some new parts and evolutions.

“As a result of that, we’ve got plenty of data to analyse now in order to establish the level of degradation. From what we can see so far, we’re expecting the difference between the soft and the medium tyre to be in the region of 0.6 seconds per lap, and we would anticipate between two and three pit stops per car in the normal course of events.”

Pirelli said 101 sets of tyres had been used during Friday’s free practice session: 53 of the P Zero White, 24 P Zero Yellow, 22 intermediate Cinturato Green and 2 wet Cinturato Blue. The highest number of laps on any one set of tyres was 14, completed on both the P Zero Yellow and White slick compounds.

Hembery to chat online
 
On Saturday Paul Hembery will take part in a live online chat from the Chinese Grand Prix at 18:00 local time (11:00 in the UK). To join in, those on the internet can visit: http://streamingf1.pirelli.com/share/, or the tyre brand’s Facebook page.

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