Mercedes explains pre-season testing tyre choice

Reining world champion Mercedes only topped once the time sheet over the course of the eight test days despite having dominated the preparation for the new season in terms of mileage and long run pace.

The lack of glorious laps is down to the sheer fact that the Anglo-German team only ordered a few sets of the softer compounds as auto motor und sport has learned.

In fact, the Brackley-based squad ordered 60 sets of medium and only 4 sets of soft compound. It means that the team didn’t run the hard, the supersoft and the brand-new ultrasoft tyre.

According to the team the Barcelona track which hosted the testing didn’t allow to test any compound softer then the soft properly due to its high-speed, long turns.

The medium tyre was favoured as the team wanted to cover as many mileages as the timeframe allowed to.

“We could only reach the distances which we set as target with this high number of medium sets. ,” said the technical chief, Paddy Lowe.

Pirelli gave eight sets of tyre to every team on each test day.