Tyre debrief: Graining might play a vital factor at the resurfaced Monza track

F1 drivers produced an interesting afternoon of free practice for the Italian Grand Prix at the Monza circuit, with Mercedes junior driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Haas racer Kevin Magnussen having caused short stoppages.

The 20 drivers were able to assess the completely new track surface, which is proving to be considerably quicker than the previous one: there’s a different of a second between the FP1 sessions from this year to 2023, six tenths comparing FP2.

Lewis Hamilton was quickest overall in 1’20”738 in his Mercedes, followed by Lando Norris in the McLaren who was just a whisker off, with three thousandths separating the two cars.

Confirming how close the gaps this season continue to be, the fastest five, who are the only ones to get under the 1’21” barrier, are covered by a mere 154 thousandths of a second: behind the previously mentioned top two came Carlos Sainz (Ferrari, 1’20”841), Oscar Piastri (McLaren, 1’20”858) and Charles Leclerc (Ferrari, 1’20”892).

Andrea Kimi Antonelli made his first appearance in an official Formula 1 session. However, the Mercedes driver only did five laps before crashing into the barriers at the Parabolica. Also making his debut, Franco Colapinto is now an official Williams race driver, after driving in FP1 at Silverstone, with the same team. The last time an Argentinian raced in Formula 1 dates back to the 2001 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, when Gaston Mazzacane drove for Prost.

Pirelli brought the softest tyres of its five-compound range, the C3, C4 and C5. So far, most of the drivers concentrated on the soft and the medium compound while the C3 has not made many friends on Friday.

Yuki Tsunoda (Racing Bulls) was the only driver to use the Hard over the first two hours of free practice. All 19 other drivers preferred to save the hardest of the three compounds for the coming days, most likely for Sunday. So the Medium and Softs did most of the work, with the C4 preferred over the long runs in the second session, by almost all drivers because the C5 has shown itself to be a qualifying tyre.

Reflecting on the opening day at Monza, Pirelli’s motorsport director Mario Isola noted that tyres have behaved as expected after the Italian tyre manufacturer had conducted an evaluation at the start of August.

“There have been plenty of interesting points this Friday. The big unknown going into the weekend was the state of the all new track surface, which is the main novelty of this Italian Grand Prix. From what we could see today, we can say that the results of prior simulations were generally confirmed, with a very significant level of adhesive grip.

“This factor, combined with this track requiring a low aerodynamic load, may have accentuated the graining effect which was quite marked on both compounds used. Obviously, we have no real indications regarding the Hard, as just one driver used it to complete only 17 laps. However, this is a clear indication of the direction in which the teams might go with regard to tyre usage over the rest of the weekend.

Despite the slightly higher tyre degradation, Isola estimates that most of the drivers will try to execute a one-stop strategy on Sunday given the length of the pit lane of the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza.

“At this track, the length of the pit lane and the time taken to change tyres means that a two-stop strategy comes with quite a penalty, so the most likely scenario is that the teams will still try to manage the Medium and the Hard so as to do just one pit stop, keeping a second hard set for a potential Plan B if degradation because of graining is still very significant in the race.

“It is therefore a question of graining: we will have to see how the track evolves as from tomorrow morning, the more laps the Formula 1 cars and those of the other categories do and the track rubbers in. Another important factor to consider will be the temperatures.

“It was very hot today with the track reaching 54 °C, theoretically at about the time of the middle of the race on Sunday. Such high temperatures could have a further impact on degradation. We have seen that the track is quicker than last year and it became even more so during the sessions, more significantly during FP1, a bit less so in FP2. It will be interesting to see what will happen in this regard tomorrow, starting in FP3.”