Limited practice data means teams will have to be “flexible” with Mugello strategies

Mugello’s high speed corners and abrasive track surface are giving the tyres a pounding. But will it be enough to force teams to do more than the single mandatory pit stop on Sunday?

That was Pirelli’s expectation before practice on Friday. “In our preliminary simulations, we were expecting the strategy [to be] two stops,” said its head of motorsport and Formula 1 Mario Isola. “It is probably not too far from the truth.”

But a familiar phenomenon is expected on this unfamiliar circuit. A two-stop strategy may be theoretically quicker, but only if you can run in clear air. As overtaking is expected to be more difficult at this circuit than typical layouts, teams therefore have a strong incentive to treat the tyres very gently and coax them home on a one-stop strategy.

“This circuit is quite narrow and overtaking opportunities are very limited,” said Isola. “Just at the end of the straight we have only one DRS zone.

“So I believe that teams will try to plan a strategy on one stop and try to push on longer stints because otherwise they lose too much time on an additional pit stop.”

It’s not a foregone conclusion that this will happen. Teams have limited data on Mugello and weren’t able to build up a full picture on Friday as second practice was disrupted by two red flags.

“If the wear is too high and they start losing performance, they’ll have to plan a different strategy,” said Isola. “It’s very difficult to predict because not having data from this afternoon and not having data from the past they need to be flexible during the race, checking the wear after the first stint.”

With 15 medium-to-high speed corners, more than half of which are taken at over 200kph, the front tyres are taking the hardest hit and will give the first sign of trouble.

Teams will find it harder to make one-stop strategies work if they have to start the race on soft tyres. The soft tyre offers a performance gain of nine tenths of a second per lap, according to Pirelli, which is above their original predictions.

Based on the second practice times, and assuming the likes of McLaren and Racing Point have some performance in hand, the front runners may not find it as easy to pass through Q2 on medium tyres as they have at other tracks.

The comparison to Silverstone will inevitably prompt questions over how Mercedes will perform on their tyres. They encountered problems with their rubber in both races at the Northamptonshire track, whether it was blistering (70th Anniversary Grand Prix) or late-race failures (British Grand Prix).

Pirelli played down the prospects of such problems occuring in the race. “We didn’t experience any graining, any blistering, anything else, just a bit of abrasion,” said Isola. “That, again, is expected in the afternoon.

“In some cases, a little bit of porosity is visible. So probably during the race if we have a bit of blistering, it’s not a big surprise. We know that blistering at certain levels is not affecting the performance of the tyre. So I believe that the blistering can be manageable.”

Buthow much more grip will be found as the rubber level builds up remains unknown, and therefore so does the cars’ ultimate performance levels. Therefore the possibility remains Mugello’s first F1 race won’t run exactly to the usual 2020 form.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Combined practice times

Pos	Driver	Car	FP1	FP2	Total laps
1	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1’17.879	1’16.989	61
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’18.409	1’17.196	57
3	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda	1’17.927	1’17.235	57
4	Alexander Albon	Red Bull-Honda	1’19.068	1’17.971	62
5	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault	1’19.140	1’18.039	57
6	Esteban Ocon	Renault	1’18.805	1’18.115	57
7	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’18.186	1’18.400	54
8	Sergio Perez	Racing Point-Mercedes	1’19.840	1’18.198	63
9	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri-Honda	1’18.676	1’18.244	60
10	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’19.219	1’18.385	59
11	Lance Stroll	Racing Point-Mercedes	1’19.836	1’18.462	60
12	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1’19.267	1’18.498	66
13	Carlos Sainz Jnr	McLaren-Renault	1’19.457	1’18.651	65
14	Lando Norris	McLaren-Renault	1’18.981	1’18.658	39
15	Daniil Kvyat	AlphaTauri-Honda	1’18.839	1’18.736	64
16	George Russell	Williams-Mercedes	1’19.478	1’18.843	62
17	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’19.322	1’18.944	63
18	Nicholas Latifi	Williams-Mercedes	1’20.034	1’18.983	63
19	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’19.551	1’19.113	57
20	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari	1’19.224	1’19.257	30

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Best sector times – second practice

Car number	Driver	Car	Sector 1	Sector 2	Sector 3
77	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	27.578	21.197	28.214
44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	27.817	21.282	28.097
33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda	27.744	21.384	28.107
23	Alexander Albon	Red Bull-Honda	27.873	21.645	28.453
3	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault	28.296	21.515	28.228
31	Esteban Ocon	Renault	28.098	21.609	28.408
11	Sergio Perez	Racing Point-Mercedes	28.202	21.534	28.462
10	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri-Honda	28.085	21.477	28.545
7	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	28.16	21.628	28.597
16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	28.177	21.58	28.643
18	Lance Stroll	Racing Point-Mercedes	28.354	21.597	28.511
5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	28.236	21.686	28.576
55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	McLaren-Renault	28.491	21.546	28.499
4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Renault	28.466	21.538	28.654
26	Daniil Kvyat	AlphaTauri-Honda	28.429	21.662	28.645
63	George Russell	Williams-Mercedes	28.483	21.607	28.753
99	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	28.536	21.86	28.548
6	Nicholas Latifi	Williams-Mercedes	28.501	21.551	28.894
20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	28.548	21.729	28.788
8	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari	28.671	21.718	28.868

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2020 Tuscan Grand Prix Ferrari 1000

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