• Indian Grand Prix

Pirelli predicts last-gasp pit stops

Pirelli's Paul Hembery: "The hard tyre is very hard, I think we could have done three races on that" © Sutton Images

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Pirelli is expecting drivers to maximise their running on the soft compound tyres during the Indian Grand Prix on Sunday and would not be surprised if they make late pit stops in order to minimise their time on the hard compound.

Under the regulations drivers have to use both compounds during the race, but in Friday practice the soft tyre proved much quicker and reasonably durable. Pirelli brought the hard compound to India in order to cover all bases on a track it had little information about, and motorsport director Paul Hembery admitted the choice was rather too conservative.

"The hard tyre is very hard, I think we could have done three races on that," he said. "So anybody that says we can't do a tyre that doesn't last, that one could easily do three races!"

On the plus side, Hembery believes the durability of the tyres could result in an exciting end to the race as drivers look to extend their time on the faster, softer compound.

"It might make for an interesting last ten minutes of the race," he said. "We saw a bit of that at the Nurburging with Vettel and Massa."

Asked what the gap in lap time between the two tyres was, Hembery said: "Huge, two seconds. But even if you'd asked me before [Friday], I would have said they are going to limit their time on the hard tyre at the end of the race, much as we have seen at a few races this year. It's one of those things because when we were planning for here we didn't have any information about the tarmac, in fairness the tarmac wasn't laid. So we had to make sure we had a special reserve in case we came here and it was 50C - hindsight is fantastic in life."

With the benefit of the data from Friday practice, Hembery said the optimum compound pairing would have been softs and mediums.

"Someone asked me earlier if we could have gone super-soft and soft, well we pushed the boat out in Korea and it seemed to work there with two stops," he added. "I think it's very difficult when you come to a new track and you don't have any team data as well. The advantage we had in Korea is that we had some data from the teams - some load data - so we felt that was an aggressive move but still one that was feasible.

"Here in India I would say it is marginal for the super-soft, it's a quicker circuit than Korea and you've got that really aggressive doubling back curve (turn 10 and 11) so I think super-softs would have been too aggressive. But certainly the current medium we could have brought here."

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