31/07/2011
NEWS STORY
Mat Coch writes:
The teams look set to face their third wet race in as many rounds as wet weather again greeted them on Sunday morning. Rain overnight has left the circuit damp, and while a dry line has appeared during the morning's support races the constant drizzle has quickly doused it once racing stops.
The conditions will prove an extra challenge for teams who weren't expecting rain, indeed most forecasts were for conditions similar or better to those seen for qualifying, where the sun drove temperatures to their highest figures all weekend.
"It's a big challenge for the teams, more so because this track's quite difficult with set-up," Pirelli's motorsport boss Paul Hembery told Pitpass. "Over the last couple of days teams have been doing a lot of work on trying to find the right balance for the car, they've been suffering with the movement from understeer to oversteer. Maybe too much oversteer in some cases. To throw in maybe a damp equation…"
The GP2 race started in damp conditions however within fifteen laps a dry line was becoming evident. "If it started like the GP2 race they'd be on the intermediates," Hembery continued. "Looking at the way it's drying they would then be jumping on to the slicks rather than using the full rain tyres."
The crossover from intermediate tyres to slicks is expected to be around 115% of a 'normal' lap time, though some teams could gamble and switch earlier. "Supersofts will work pretty well in a lightly damp condition," said Hembery.
When teams make the decision to switch from intermediates to wets, if indeed it is still damp come race time, will be a step into the unknown. There's been no wet running throughout the weekend, and while the teams now have some experience in the rain with Pirelli rubber, they've not yet experienced it with the supersoft compound.
"We haven't got the experience of that crossover with the supersofts, we've not had the rain and the supersofts before, we've just had rain with soft tyres," he continued. "That will be, I'm not going to say a jump in the dark for teams, but that will be an area where they haven't got experience and they'll have to base it on good judgement.
"The track seems to be draining pretty quickly, and if we do get a bit more rain later on in the day like we've had this morning I'm confident we'll have a similar situation where they'll start on intermediates, the track will dry quickly, and they'll jump straight on to the supersofts."