Why Pirelli’s new C6 shook up Imola GP qualifying – and how it may change the race

“Understanding the C6s was difficult,” said Alex Albon after qualifying seventh for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

To an extent, that was the point in bringing it here. F1 teams spend a massive proportion of their annual budgets on research and simulations to eliminate uncertainty, but predictability is the enemy of good racing.

Pirelli added the C6 to its family at the beginning of the season to provide an even softer compound choice. It was originally slated for introduction in Monaco, with a view to rolling it out in Montreal, Singapore and Las Vegas if its maiden appearance went well.

That changed when it became clear that changes to the rest of the compounds had brought their performance and lifespan too close together, making one-stop races the default strategic option. Pirelli brought forward its debut to Imola, partly since it was already gravitating towards going a step softer than last year after the opening rounds, but chiefly to see if it would enable the company to ‘skip’ compounds at future events.

What Pirelli – and F1 and the FIA – wants to achieve is a greater variety of strategic choices, where the difference between one-stop and two-stop races is less clear cut, and where teams can make use of the difference between compounds to create an offset. The nirvana they aim for is “peak end effect” for spectators, where the offset enables drivers on fresher tyres to chase those ahead in the final laps.

But there’s a tricky balance to strike. Go too soft and you’re funnelled into a situation where the softest tyre is only used in qualifying.

That appeared to be the case in Imola, although there were some positives. Both Aston Martin drivers and Mercedes’ George Russell used medium tyres, figuring them to be better – but in doing so potentially compromised themselves for the race.

This is one of the scenarios Pirelli wanted to engineer, though it probably would rather not have reached that outcome via a soft tyre that struggled to last a full lap.

“We’ve seen it in a lot of tracks previously, both this year and last year,” said Albon. “The softer tyres generally are better at the low-speed corners.

“But even if you take Suzuka this year, the hard tyre felt the best in sector 1 [which is medium-to-high-speed]. There is a bit of a trade, and around this track it seems like the C6 just tips it over the edge.

“There are too many high-speed corners for it and it’s just falling over a little bit. It’s a bit too sensitive for this track type.

“That’s not unusual – obviously, we [F1 as a whole] are trying to also create a bit of degradation in the race. So I think we’re just going softer tyres – but to a point now where sometimes it’s getting too soft even for qualifying.”

The mood music from the drivers and several team bosses was that the C6 was losing so much performance over the course of a single flying lap that it might be better to use the medium instead – the C5, formerly Pirelli’s softest. But under the modern F1 regime where drivers are only permitted 13 sets of slick tyres over a ‘normal’ (i.e. non-sprint) weekend, drawn from the three available compounds this entailed a sacrifice only some teams were willing to make.

“The whole weekend has been a little bit confusing, which tyre was better, the medium or the soft,” said Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin’s medium-tyre punt. “So, out of the confusion, we decided to do one soft, one medium in each of the [qualifying] sessions.

Lance Stroll, Aston Martin Racing

Photo by: Lars Baron / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

“Like this, we covered every possibility. I think we were competitive with both, to be honest.

“Everything has a consequence and everything has an advantage and disadvantage. To be able to do this in qualifying, this kind of programme, you have to get rid of one of the hards.

“So, I think everyone has two hards for tomorrow. We have only one, but that’s the bet you need to make at one point.

“It’s a difficult track to overtake and we make a little bit of a priority into Saturday. Let’s see if it pays off.”

To some degree the trade-off of risk vs reward is a question of perspective. Max Verstappen, who qualified second on the C6, decided the gamble wasn’t worth it.

“I didn’t want to do that because I wanted to have the right tyres for tomorrow,” he said. “I’ve been on pole a few times this year, but after that, it didn’t really help much. We have to make sure we score points in the race, that’s the most important thing.”

The complicating factor – and the one that militates against Pirelli’s hopes of engineering strategic variety – is that Imola’s long pitlane naturally pushes teams towards a one-stop race because the time lost in the pits (around 28 seconds) inevitably costs track position which is difficult to recoup.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

“We knew going into Q3 there were going to be cars using the C5, because the C5 is quicker this weekend,” said Carlos Sainz, who went fastest of all in Q2 before ending Q3 in sixth. “Fernando used it, Russell used it and they, if anything, qualified better than what they should have, so again that proves it [that the C5 is faster because it suffers less degradation over a single lap].

“They did what everyone thought, but at the same time they are potentially compromising the race tomorrow with a used tyre. For us it’s too important in the race to sacrifice a C5.

“I would have done it, but the team was very disciplined not to use it. But again, P5 was the maximum today – a good lap on C5 would have put us three or four tenths further forward, but only one position further ahead, so it is what it is.”

Pirelli is already talking about bringing the C6 to Baku as well as the others originally planned, and pushing on with its concept of skipping compounds later on in the year. If the drivers who sacrificed C5s for a better grid position suffer no downside, of course, that may just change…