For the penultimate round of the Formula One season this coming weekend at the famous Interlagos Circuit in Brazil, Pirelli will not only bring the Supersoft compound to the venue for the first time, but also use the medium compound for the final time in the 2017 championship.
Interlagos is one of the shortest but most intense laps of the year, both in terms of physical demands and atmosphere. There's a succession of high-speed corners, constant changes in elevation, and a local climate that is capable of both intense heat and heavy rain. Once again, the tyre nomination for Brazil is softer than it has been in the past, with the medium now the hardest compound available.
The track was resurfaced relatively recently, which ironed out some of the famous Interlagos bumps. It is also the second-shortest lap of the season (after Monaco) meaning that cars are not only nearly always turning, but also going off-line to overtake.
The track runs anti-clockwise, with the right-rear tyre doing the most work and the rapid series of corners and high-energy loads put quite high demands on tyres, which are also frequently subjected to combined lateral and longitudinal forces.
Unusually, Lewis Hamilton won last year in rainy conditions without making a racing pit stop, although he did take a fresh set of wets under a red flag. The year before the top three stopped three times.
โAs we saw at the last round in Mexico as well, for Brazil we are again bringing a softer tyre nomination than last year โ when the hard was selected โ so this is likely to lead to some of the fastest-ever laps of Interlagos this weekend,โ said Mario Isola.
โWith a short lap, plus plenty of pit stops and overtaking, as well as a passionate Brazilian crowd and the potential for extremes of weather, this is normally a frenetic race where the strategic timing of stops is very important to try and minimise the effects of traffic.โ
โWhile we've gone a step softer this year, no driver has selected more than one set of the mediums, which means that the weekend will be centred around the soft and supersoft compounds.โ
