F1's world champions quicker than rivals on the two slower tyres in Montreal - but what will happen on the hypersoft?
Monday 10 December 2018 16:38, UK
Lewis Hamilton said he enjoyed a "beautiful day" of opening practice at the Canadian GP but now waits to learn how Mercedes' extensive work to improve their fortunes on F1's fastest tyre plays into their bid to win this weekend.
On a Friday of intriguing tyre conundrums in Montreal, Mercedes chose to eschew the use of Pirelli's quickest tyre, the hypersofts, and run exclusively on the supersoft and ultrasoft compounds in practice.
Red Bull and Ferrari did use the hypersofts and duly clocked faster single-lap times, with Hamilton's best effort coming on the supersofts - a compound two 'steps' harder - and Valtteri Bottas' on the ultrasofts.
With the W09 appearing the quickest car on the slower tyres, Hamilton also had the best long-run average on the middle compound, the ultrasoft, leading Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo to label Mercedes as the team to beat despite a delay to their planned engine upgrade,
"It's been a beautiful day," said Hamilton, a six-time victor in Canada. "The weather has been fantastic, the track feels amazing and better than ever. I don't know if we're faster yet than we've ever been, but I've really enjoyed it. We didn't have any problems. It's such a fun track to drive.
"It's not always that we start right out the box but it just started right. There are some things we just needed to adjust along the way. Making small increments from one time to another it always feels a little bit different, but it's been good."
How will Mercedes play the weekend's strategy game?
Crucial questions, however, remain unanswered.
Having only selected five sets of the hypersoft tyres - the same compound they suffered problems with in Monaco - per car to their rivals' eight for this weekend, Mercedes have delayed their use of Pirelli's fastest tyre until Saturday's Practice Three session.
The extensive Friday running on the other compounds has led to theories that the championship leaders will attempt to get through Q2 in Saturday's qualifying hour on the ultrasoft to ensure they start Sunday's race on that tyre. This would then mean they would not necessarily have to use the hypersoft in the race, with an ultrasoft-supersoft strategy possible.
The complication is Q3, when they would need to join Red Bull and Ferrari on running the hypersoft to ensure the highest-starting grid position. Pirelli said at the end of Friday's running that the pink-marked compound has a "significant performance advantage over the other compounds of more than a second".
Hamilton, on supersofts, was half a second slower than pace-setter Max Verstappen on hypersofts and, asked if the gap to the Red Bull was 'big' in reality, the Englishman replied: "Yes, I believe so, but we'll find out tomorrow.
"Ultimately we don't have as many hypersofts as everyone else. They have to select it quite far ahead from our test when the tyres didn't last, I think that's the information we got then and we planned for a different strategy. Everyone else I think has got eight sets and we've got four or five. But tomorrow hopefully we'll get a good feel on it and it's not too dissimilar from what we've been driving today."
How will Mercedes fare on the hypers?
The new-for-2018 hypersoft caused Mercedes repeat problems at the last race in Monaco with the W09 struggling for pace and suffering from graining as Hamilton came home third.
The world champions spent last week poring over the data in an attempt to find answers to improve the situation for Montreal, with Hamilton now keen to see how they fare on Saturday.
"Hindsight is a great thing and so naturally it would have been great to try the hyper today [if Mercedes had selected more sets], but others have and I've seen some that degraded a lot and some maybe haven't. But P3 is the time that we take it for a spin and have a look of it," he said.
"I think we have definitely understood it but, still, you have to set it up and go with a certain spec. The hyper seems to require something different to the ultra and the others, but we will see tomorrow."
