Several Formula One drivers have criticized the Pirelli tires after the sprint at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix in Brazil, which they said “felt terrible” as severe degradation limited pace and strategy options.
While winner Max Verstappen and pole-setter Lando Norris were able to pull away at the front, the midfield was determined by DRS trains and a high level of “Lift & Coast” to control tire wear and temperatures.
All but three drivers started Saturday’s 24-lap race on soft tires, while the three medium drivers (both Haas cars and Logan Sargeant) complained of similarly poor wear halfway through the race.
At the forefront of the complaints was Williams driver Alex Albon, who said the tires felt “terrible” and the hard compound was unusable: “It looked like scrap everywhere. It was a slow race. The tire wear is just massive . To be honest, it feels terrible to drive.”
“I think everyone must be feeling bad because the pace wasn’t actually that bad, but the race didn’t feel good to me. So it’s tough. It feels strange because when you’re so far behind , you would think that everyone should have switched to harder tires. But the hard tires are so bad here that you have to go with the soft tires because they have the grip you need. These tires are just not good. You have to managing them so much.”
Formula 1: Brazil track “super strange”
Albon says that this was also the case in Mexico, Qatar, the USA and in qualifying: “The degradation is very high, especially when we get to hotter climes and on difficult tracks with high straights. These tracks with old asphalt tend to eat up the tires. It feels like we’re just strolling around.”
Lewis Hamilton says he has never experienced such extreme degradation on the Sao Paulo track, while AlphaTauri driver Daniel Ricciardo puts some of the blame on the track surface. After his ninth place, the Australian said: “The track was super strange, of course also with the tires. The asphalt here is bad. It sucks.”
Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, on the other hand, says the tire problems are the same as those of previous seasons. He says: “It’s always been the case that we struggle more with overheating in hotter races. So I don’t feel like it’s particularly bad this year compared to other years. It’s pretty similar. I feel the same way “A lot to struggle with as we have in recent years in terms of overheating and dealing with it. That’s always the case.”