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Traditionally the event has been seen as a one-stop-shop event, but this year Pirelli has chosen to go slower than previously and bring its C3, C4 and C5 compounds. with the aim of creating more interesting strategic choices.
Drivers reported graining on Friday, with Nico Hulkenberg noting that the C5 was “no racing compound“.
Russell therefore believes that a one-stop shop strategy will no longer be the obvious choice.
“I think this year, with the softer tires, it’s going to be difficult in the race,” said the Mercedes driver.
“I think it was an easy one-stop shop in previous years, but apparently so far that won’t be the case.
“It was really tricky there – for all the cars there was a lot of grain in the pits.
“Usually it’s a qualifying race here in Melbourne, but now Pirelli has been quite impactful, I think things are slightly different.
“Last week [in Jeddah] probably too conservative and needed to go slower. That’s what we did this week.
George Russell, Mercedes-AMG F1 team
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Alpine’s Esteban Ocon agreed that Melbourne’s tire selection would create greater strategic variety.
“It was interesting to test these new, softer compounds compared to last year,” said the Frenchman. “I think this is going in the right direction.
“It should be a more interesting race with that aspect of things because it’s a very low degradation circuit, so that could lead to more interesting strategies in general. Last year we could do the whole race on one tire [set]so it should be a little different this year.
Pirelli chief engineer Simone Berra confirmed the company wanted to spice up the strategic choice in Melbourne.
“Obviously we knew from the beginning that graining would be the main factor here,” he said.
“This has already been a factor in recent years, with C2 being the stronger compound compared to softer compounds.
“But we wanted to get different results, let’s say, in terms of strategies. It was clear in the past that C3, C2 were the best strategy, one stop, clear for everyone and quite boring in terms of tire choice.
“This year it seems to be a little different. Tire management will obviously make the difference compared to past years. And that’s something we saw today during free practice.
“So basically the teams haven’t used the hard compounds, they prefer to keep the hard compounds for racing – simply because it’s the strongest in terms of grain propagation. And they want to use them for racing.”
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