The GP2 Series resumes with round four at the jewel in the championship’s crown: Monaco. Just as is the case for Formula One, the P Zero Yellow soft and P Zero Red supersoft tyres have been nominated. For GP2, this is the first time that the supersoft compound will be used in the 2013 season.
Both compounds make a natural choice for Monaco, which is the slowest and tightest track that the GP2 cars visit all year. With strategy now a vital part of the GP2 format, key decisions will already have to be taken from qualifying onwards as to how to get the best use out of the tyre allocation.
There is a different format to the race weekend in Monaco compared to other events. In particular qualifying will once more be split into two groups in order to avoid traffic problems, with odd and even-numbered cars out on track separately.
Pirelli’s racing manager says:
Mario Isola: “The Monaco weekend is always very special for everyone and with the two softest compounds in our range available to the GP2 drivers, they will be able to exploit the maximum performance of their cars. While wear and degradation on tyres in Monaco is not particularly high, the rubber has to do a lot of work as there is very little downforce providing aerodynamic grip: just mechanical grip from the tyres. Strategy will obviously be key: time can be saved in the pits if the teams decide just to change two tyres only at the pit stops, but for this strategy to work, the two tyres changed have to be of the same compound with which the car started the race. We nominated the combination of hard and soft tyres for the first three races, so by now the drivers have a good understanding of these compounds, but now they are faced with something different. The key to success at Monaco will be quickly understanding the unique characteristics of the supersoft compound – which are the most performance orientated GP2 tyres that we produce – in order to make the best use of them in qualifying and the race. The usual rhythm of a race weekend will be different too, as unusually the feature race takes place on Friday morning, with the sprint race on Saturday afternoon. All these factors – as well as a paddock in a multi-storey car park – combine to make Monaco feel quite different from anywhere else.”
The challenge for the tyres:
Monaco is the slowest race of the year, with a track surface that evolves over the course of the weekend. With the streets open to traffic not only before the race but also during the evenings, the amount of mechanical grip is constantly changing and very hard to predict.The supersoft is sure to be the quickest option for qualifying, thanks to its rapid warm-up time and high levels of lateral grip, but the soft is the more durable tyre over a race distance.Overtaking at Monaco is traditionally extremely difficult, which puts an even bigger emphasis on strategy than usual to try and make up track position.
