The tyre compound choices for this weekend are the same as they were in Malaysia where Ferrari with Sebastian Vettel were victorious. So can they repeat their success on Sunday?
The graphs below compare the long run comparison of the two teams in Spain earlier today and Malaysia FP2 long runs. (X Axis lap number, Y time). I have discounted the lap times which were multiple seconds slower due to traffic or errors.
Immediately it is apparent that today, Mercedes were quicker but ran shorter stints. Earlier today Hamilton used the option tyre first but had a more trouble free run on the primes later.
Interestingly, Vettel was both quicker and more consistent on the prime tyre than Raikkonen on the option despite the team earlier claiming that the option was the preferred race tyre. Since the delta (1.8 seconds) between the two compounds is close to the FP2 cut off position in FP2 (2 seconds), we might see Ferrari push in FP1 to only use one set of primes to save an extra set for the race.
This is the risk for Ferrari. If Mercedes can save a set of options, Ferrari need to also save a set.
We can also see that the times were much closer together in Malaysia. But why did Mercedes run short stints today?
As I briefly mentioned earlier, Hamilton’s prime compound stint started with around 15 minutes left in the session. Rosberg was already on used options and wasn’t very consistent with clean laps on his stint of 15.
The degradation of the Ferrari looks lower again. Vettel slows by around 0.6s over 16 laps but this will be magnified when following in dirty air so a good qualifying and race start launch here is key as overtaking opportunities are scarce. The distance from the grid to turn 1 is the longest on the calendar.
Unless a Ferrari can separate or lead the Mercedes cars at the start, the times suggest this could be a two-horse (non prancing) race for victory.
