Huge difference between Pirelli’s supersoft und soft compound

Pirelli had an action-packed day in Hockenheim on Friday after F1 did not visit the historic venue in 2015. It meant tyre testing and evaluation were very important both for the teams and the tyre manufacturer.

Italian company Pirelli brought the trio of supersoft, soft and medium to Germany. The first two compounds were widely used by the teams as even the softest tyre proved to be pretty durable on the quite bumpy surface of the Hockenheimring.

As F1 missed Germany last year, it was important to check how the latest generation cars work on Pirelli’s 2016 tyres.

“With the drivers not having been to Hockenheim for a couple of years, today was really all about reacquainting themselves with the track and collecting data that was relevant to the current performance levels of the 2016 cars and tyres."

Hembery was happy with the amount of data teams collected throughout the opening running in Germany.

“Despite some changeable and slippery conditions – especially in the morning – the teams generally achieved their objectives and we’ve got a lot of data to look at now.”

Supersoft compound proved to be 1,3 second quicker than softs in FP1 which increased to 1,5 second in FP2.

“It’s clear that the supersoft enjoys quite a notable performance advantage here, so naturally the teams have concentrated a lot on that, as well as maximising the opportunities offered by the soft tyres.”

”However, there’s still quite a lot of learning and analysis still to be done," said the Briton.