F1 News

Pirelli state one-stop is not the fastest strategy

Pirelli state "one-stop is not the fastest strategy"

11-07-2019 10:59 Last update: 11:16
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Pirelli's Motorsport Director Mario Isola believes that two and three stop race strategies are marginally faster than a one-stop but teams elect for one stops because it is less risky and involved less overtaking. He believes that a one-stop needs to be around 10 seconds slower before teams will even think about opting for a two stop. 

“Maybe with the numbers that we have in the target letter it is quite normal that [a] one-stop strategy is the quickest,” he said to RaceFans.

“On paper, it’s not the quickest. If you look at the numbers and you try to make a simulation you have numbers that are making the one-stop, two-stop and three-stop very similar. [But] what we learned is that if you have one, two and three stop [strategies] that are very similar everybody will target one stop because it’s less risky: No overtaking, no traffic and so on.

“So we tried last year to select compounds with a target to have a two-stop strategy that was five seconds quicker than a one-stop. We learned that five seconds is not enough because with five seconds they still target the one-stop. So now we are trying to understand which is the right difference. That is probably between eight and 10 seconds.”

It will be interesting to see if Pirelli make the compounds different in the future which will lead to more pit stops and then ultimately more wheel to wheel racing. 

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