At TyreQuote.com we can’t help but get a little bit excited about watching a Grand Prix or two. We like tyres and we like racing – shame then that this weekend’s European Grand Prix didn’t exactly hit the high notes of the previous round in Montreal when Britain’s Jenson Button finally exploited a chink in the otherwise unflappable armour of Seb Vettel.
With the Canadian rain a distant memory on the sun baked Valencia street track, there was simply a sad lack of action at the business end of things. A tidy overtaking from Alonso on Webber was really the only glimmer of the elite talent that we hope to witness each time we tune into the excellent BBC coverage. Perhaps it’s just sour grapes that the McLarens of Hamilton and Button simply didn’t have the pace to challenge and with only a couple of short week’s until the British GrandPrix, it will have to be rain dances around Silverstone to mitigate against another domination from Red Bull and the infuriating finger wagging Vettel.
So while we pray for some more technological genius to pour out of the McLaren headquarters in Surrey to prompt a championship challenge at last we can briefly reflect on our other passion – tyres. This weekend’s Valencia Grand Prix saw the introduction of Pirelli’s medium compound PZero tyre in an effort to withstand the harsh and hot track surface. During the build up to the race it seemed that as usual the different teams had different opinions on the Pirelli tyres and McLaren themselves seemed to be complaining that the medium compound wasn’t really giving them enough grip compared to the softer option tyres and getting enough heat into the medium and hard tyres over the course of the season so far was proving tricky. Ferrari have also been reported to voice disappointment in the Pirelli tyres with Fernando Alonso getting most upset at the recent Spanish Grand Prix when he was even lapped by the front runners because he couldn’t get any grip or pace from the harder tyres offered by Pirelli. Many of the drivers stopped 4 times that race, so the evidence was that the tyre strategy wasn’t quite right.
At TyreQuote.com we think Pirelli have done a good job returning to Formula 1 so far this season and hopefully we can see a return to more spectacular racing soon. Good to luck to Lewis and Jenson at Silverstone!
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