Pirelli: Low degradation could lead to gambles

Formula 1 tyre supplier Pirelli says wear and degradation at the Monaco Grand Prix is 'practically zero', which could lead to alternative strategies during Sunday's race.

Following several years of producing high-degradation tyres, Pirelli has moved to the other end of the spectrum in 2017, with rubber lasting for an extensive period of time.

Pirelli has brought the Ultrasoft, Supersoft and Soft tyres to the Circuit de Monaco, and accepts that softer one-event specific compounds would ideally be required.

Pirelli Head of Car Racing Mario Isola has also suggested that some drivers may attempt to negotiate Q2 on the Supersoft tyres, consequently starting on the red-banding rubber if they make Q3, and then changing early for Ultrasofts.

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"Monaco is not a circuit that generally holds many surprises: we saw very limited running on the soft and the majority of action on the Ultrasoft, exactly as we expected," said Isola.

"Even this compound is on the hard spectrum for the very specific low grip conditions of Monaco: ideally we would bring specialised compounds for this event, even softer than the current Ultrasoft.

"Nonetheless, we already saw the fastest ever lap of Monaco even in FP1, which subsequently became even faster in FP2.

"Some drivers who want to do something different in qualifying might choose to run the Supersoft in Q2 on Saturday: in the event of an early Safety Car [period], this is a gamble that could pay off."