Mercedes F1 declares the call to start the Spanish GP with soft tires

The Black Arrows squad regularly takes the mid-compound tire in qualifying to give them more strategic options in races where the yellow-walled rubber is also generally more durable than the softs the other top 10 runners use to make theirs Secure Q3 places.

Red Bull usually gives a similar strategy to Max Verstappen, but all three front-runners avoided that approach in Saturday’s qualifying in Barcelona. This means that all 10 Q3 runners will start the race on the soft compounds, just like at the 2020 Spanish GP.

In the post-qualifying press conference, Bottas explained that the thinking behind Mercedes, not using their typical Q2 tactics, is the difficulty of passing Barcelona and the lack of grip the media would offer at the start of the race compared to the softs , is justified.

“The position on the track is pretty important here, so I just didn’t want to lose any ground at the start – that’s the main thing,” said the Finn.

Hamilton explained: “It’s 600 meters to the first corner, so six meters difference [in grip of the line] there is no advantage between the tires “.

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He added, “Especially when you put the medium in position and the car behind it is soft, for example, and they box – [your team will] pull yourself in anyway.

“So then you don’t have the advantage [of the mediums being more durable] and you have just given up additional opportunity. That is the reason.”

Verstappen said Red Bull could easily have qualified behind the top three despite the compact pack [the mediums]”but did not feel” thought it was necessary to do so “.

Verstappen also explained why he had decided to overtake several cars in his final out-round in the third quarter, which, in his opinion, did not affect his failure to set a faster time on his final qualifying run – a development that happened to Hamilton too Bottas.

He said, “I just didn’t want to be on the back of the train.

“Because when I left the garage I saw that there were seven cars in front of me, and of course I know from experience that you are turning 10 and suddenly you almost have to stop, so I didn’t want to.

“So I just passed it and my tire temperatures were okay when I started mine [final] Round. I just didn’t want to get into a mess where people want to overtake you in the last two corners or whatever. “