I’ve just been down to Aston Martin for our regular pre-race tech chat with the team’s performance director, Tom McCullough, who summed up the interesting strategic challenge facing everyone in Qatar.
Pirelli expects this to be a one-stop race, with its predictions anticipating drivers will start on mediums and then switch to hards between Lap 19-25.
But the high-speed corners throughout a lap around Lusail means there is a lot of front degradation, given how much the tires are getting worked to keep enough grip.
So while a one-stop strategy is possible, according to McCullough it is easy for drivers to run out of tires. Management is required, and was even present through the sprint yesterday. Here is McCullough:
💬 “It’s not an easy one-stop race. The simulations would push you to a one-stop, largely because it’s hard to overtake. But it isn’t a one stop if you run out of tires, so that’s the balance everyone is playing.”
The difficulty of overtaking in Qatar means track position is important, making it less favorable to take an extra pit stop. It’s also quite a long pit lane, meaning the time lost by stopping again is around 26 seconds.
Hanging on to pit under the safety car would save about 10 seconds.
So that’s the three-pronged challenge facing teams here: tire life, difficulty of overtaking, and pit lane time loss.
It could make this far from a straightforward race for the pit wall.
