2023-07-10 02:25:49
McLaren explains why British GP changed Norris to hard tires
The McLaren team explained why they switched to hard tires in place of Lando Norris in the official British GP race. It was due to the timing of the safety car deployment that prompted them to make such a decision.
On the 33rd lap of yesterday’s 52-lap race, Kevin Magnussen’s Haas car caught fire at the rear of the Wellington straight section. The virtual safety car was deployed immediately, and the drivers took advantage of this opportunity to pit.
At this time, Norris, who was in second, was regarding 9 seconds behind the leader Max Verstappen. The Red Bull driver clearly showed that he was out of reach, so the McLaren team thought it would be safer to replace Norris with a hard tire instead of risking a soft tire. .
However, when race regulators upgraded the virtual safety car to a safety car, it meant Norris had another potential chance to challenge Verstappen for the victory, while he also had to defend his position at the restart, which meant the soft tyres. is a more valuable option.
But just when Norris was regarding to pit and the team technicians prepared the hard tires, the handling on the field was changed from the virtual safety car to the safety car. This made the McLaren team feel that it was too risky to switch to soft tires temporarily. big.
Andrea Stella, McLaren team principal, explained when talking regarding the decision to switch to hard tires, which depends on the timing of the virtual safety car switching to safety car. He said: “Under the virtual safety car, we are more willing to switch to hard tires. tires, because warm tires won’t be a problem.”
“But when we were regarding to come in, it happened that the virtual safety car turned into a safety car. We were all ready to change to hard tires. If we changed to soft tires temporarily, it would bring operational problems.”
So the biggest risk is that before McLaren’s technicians change the hard tire to the soft tire, Norris has already changed the tire position, wasting a lot of time and giving other drivers the opportunity to pass him.
Stella continued: “If your crew is ready to change a driver to a hard tire, and you suddenly ask them to change to a soft tire, that means the person who takes the tire out has to go to the garage once more, remove the warmer, put the The tires come out, which can create big trouble and delays in time.”
While McLaren knew the hard tyres would be harder to warm up than the softs, the high-speed nature of Silverstone made the difference seem insignificant, which is why they ended up putting Norris on the hard tyres, as originally planned, rather than at the last minute Reasons for changing plans to switch to soft tires.
Stella added: “We don’t think there’s a noticeable difference between the hard and the soft in terms of warming up the tyres, in today’s conditions. If you manage the first four corners well, by turn nine the tires start to develop. Enough temperature, so we keep making simple decisions.”
“We didn’t want to change the tire choice in the pitstop, as that might cause significant delays. And given the possible loss of position at the restart, it was the most sensible option.”
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