19/06/2018
NEWS STORY
While a first glance at the tyre sets drivers have chosen to take to the Red Bull Ring for next week's Austrian Grand Prix shows an awful lot of purple (ultrasoft) closer inspection reveals an interesting difference of opinion.
Williams and Renault both go for the full complement of ten sets of the purple-banded tyre, while Ferrari, Force India and Sauber go for nine.
Mercedes, Red Bull, Toro Rosso and McLaren go for eight of the softest tyres available for that particular race, while Haas opts for just seven sets.
On the other hand, Romain Grosjean takes 5 sets of supersofts and his teammate Kevin Magnussen 4, with Valtteri Bottas and the Toro Rosso duo following the Dane's example.
In terms of the soft - the hardest compound available next weekend - the McLaren duo and Charles Leclerc lead the way with 3 sets apiece, while Bottas, Raikkonen, Sirotkin, Grosjean and the Toro Rosso pair take just one set.
The same three compounds have been available for the last two seasons - though this year's compounds are all a step softer than in 2017 - with Bottas winning last year's race on a one-stop (groan) strategy, starting on the ultrasofts and subsequently switching to supersofts, a strategy echoed by seven of the top eight finishers.