Pirelli’s Mario Isola: “All three compounds played an important role over Zandvoort’s rollercoaster lap”

Pirelli Motorsport Director Mario Isola reflected on an exciting Dutch Grand Prix, a race where tyres played a significant role with safety cars tossing up teams’ strategies across the grid. The result was a race of alternative strategies and quick decisions with all three compounds put to use. 

Race winner Max Verstappen started on the soft compound tyre, the most common selection across the grid, then switched to mediums on lap eighteen. When a virtual safety car was brought out due to Yuki Tsunoda being stopped on the track, he switched to hards. 

A full safety car was brought out to recover Valtteri Bottas’ car after he suffered an engine failure on the pit straight, giving Verstappen the opportunity to move onto softs again on lap fifty-six. With two stops under neutralised conditions, he was able to ward off any competition from Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team, who opted for an alternative strategy that looked to be quite strong until the final safety car. 

“We saw an exciting and emotional race, ultimately influenced by two variables that can happen at a tricky circuit like Zandvoort: different strategies thanks to the contained degradation of the soft and the strong performance of the hard compound. 

“There was also a virtual safety car and then a safety car, which kept the action unpredictable all the way to the flag, with plenty of overtaking thanks to the latest regulations as well.”

Isola emphasised the role of the hard tyre, the compound that Mercedes took advantage of after starting on mediums. Though their potentially winning strategy was foiled by the unexpected safety cars that left them out of contention for the win, Isola called the tyre “one of the stars of the show” in Zandvoort.

“We saw a sea of orange in the grandstands, and I’d like to add another colour to the panorama of the Dutch Grand Prix: white, which is the colour of our hard tyre. That hard tyre was one of the stars of the show, thanks to very low degradation along with plenty of speed.

“The track evolution over the course of the weekend ensured that it came into its own on race day, with many teams adapting their strategies to make use of it. All three compounds played an important role over Zandvoort’s rollercoaster lap, with three drivers from three different teams on the podium.”

Credit: Zak Mauger / LAT Images / Pirelli Media