TIRES FOR THE FIRST 4 RACES

Pirelli has announced its compound choices for the first four races of the season, with a different selection scheduled for each race.

At the first race in Australia supersoft and medium tyres will be used. A week later in Malaysia medium and hard will be made available. At the third round in China soft and medium tyres will be on offer and in Bahrain soft and hard tyres will be supplied.

The compound choices are as follows:

Melbourne: Supersoft and medium [2012 - Soft and Medium)
Malaysia: Medium and Hard [2012 - Medium and Hard]
China: Soft and Medium [2012 - Soft and Medium]
Bahrain: Soft and Hard [2012 - Soft and Medium]

Pirelli gave the following explanations for its choices:

"In Australia, the P Zero White medium and P Zero Red supersoft tyres will be nominated: the first time that Pirelli has nominated the softest compound in the range for Melbourne. The full step in the compound choice should ensure a performance gap between the cars that allows strategy to come into play.

The choice of the P Zero Orange hard and P Zero White medium for Malaysia - the two hardest tyres in the range - will cater for the high temperatures and abrasive surface that is a well-known characteristic of the Far Eastern track.

The P Zero White medium and P Zero Yellow soft tyres are nominated for China: the best choice for the comparatively high degradation expected as a result of the demanding track layout, which leads to close racing.

Like Australia, Bahrain has a brand new nomination this year compared to last year: P Zero Orange hard and P Zero Yellow soft. This is designed to ensure plenty of speed in qualifying coupled with the durability needed for the race, which is again often held in high temperatures."

So it looks like Pirelli are really trying to spice up the racing in 2013, as has been requested by Bernie, the teams and FIA. Which is good for us fans as we would like to see more strategies involved and more uncertainty. Although to be honest I don't like it when my preferred driver is leading and there are question marks over his tires but it does make the racing more exciting.

So far we're had thrilling seasons for the past 3 years even though the same driver and team won the championship. Here's hoping to a turn in form for this year, it's about time somebody else won it. James Allen has a detailed analysis of the tires and how it will affect the racing come these 4 races, the analysis assisted by Mark Gillan, former Chief Operations Engineer at Williams. To read that click here.

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