{"id":108615,"date":"2025-05-17T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T09:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/108615\/"},"modified":"2025-05-17T09:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T09:00:09","slug":"f1s-imola-tyre-choice-likely-to-increase-mclarens-advantage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/108615\/","title":{"rendered":"F1’s Imola tyre choice likely to increase McLaren’s advantage"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Russell<\/a> believes the new soft tyre Formula 1 has introduced for this weekend\u2019s race will play into McLaren\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri<\/a> and Lando Norris dominated the last round of the world championship in Miami, where Russell finished 37 seconds behind in third place. The combination of hot track conditions and a soft tyre selection played to their strengths as the team\u2019s car can control the temperature of its tyres better than its rivals.<\/p>\n

For this weekend\u2019s race at Imola, Pirelli has selected softer tyres than last year including its new C6 compound, its softest option. It was originally conceived as a new tyre for street circuits such as Monaco, where F1 will race next week.<\/p>\n

While this was intended to broaden the strategic options available to teams at a track where overtaking is difficult, Russell suspects the move will play into McLaren\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of tyre degradation,\u201d he told the official F1 channel after practice yesterday. \u201cObviously we\u2019ve got the softest compounds here, first time of the season, so that sort of spices things up a bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we know McLaren generally seem to extend their advantage in those conditions. I had Oscar in my sights, then I didn\u2019t. So that was a little bit\u2026 He sort of passed Max and went off [into the distance].<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s just where we are at the moment as a team, we know our fight is with Max [Verstappen] and the Ferraris.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Russell likened Pirelli\u2019s new tyre to the \u2018hyper-soft\u2019 compound it briefly introduced, which drivers tended to use in qualifying but much less often in races.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the quali run it was pretty good, to be honest,\u201d said Russell. \u201cI remember when Seb [Vettel] did an interview like six years ago in Monaco about using the hyper-soft for the first time. That\u2019s sort of what I\u2019m thinking as well, I think you know what I\u2019m talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know this tyre isn\u2019t really suited to a track like this,\u201d he added. \u201cBut it mixes things up a bit, so that\u2019s what we want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other drivers, including Alexander Albon<\/a>, said they doubt the change of tyre allocation will lead teams to use different strategies in the race.<\/p>\n

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2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix
\nBrowse all 2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix articles<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell believes the new soft tyre Formula 1 has introduced for this weekend\u2019s race will play into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[45410,4199,707,4200,9824,1710,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-108615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-2025-emilia-romagna-grand-prix","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-george-russell","13":"tag-mclaren","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114522359302839963","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}