Pirelli is anticipating tyres to be the talk of the town this weekend in Canada.
Much like Monaco, the Italian supplier has brought their three softest compounds to Montreal due to the low-grip nature of the rarely used circuit located on the Ile de Notre Dame.
And in a year when many teams have struggled to find the optimum performance window of the 2019 tyres, Pirelli motorsport boss Mario Isola explained why that will be even harder this weekend.
“Broadly speaking, our nomination for Canada is about the same as last year, when the hypersoft also made its second appearance of the year after Monaco,” he said.
“The main difference is that the hardest compound available this weekend is a bit harder than last year as there is no equivalent of the supersoft in the 2019 range, so the choices are more spread out.
“While we have the same nomination as Monaco, a few of the teams have compared Montreal more with Baku, where we made a harder selection because of the higher speeds, longer straights and the challenge of balancing tyre temperatures across the front and rear of the car.
“Montreal is also a race that contains plenty of variety, in terms of strategy, on-track action and weather.
“The teams always go into it not knowing quite what to expect, so it’s especially important to accumulate as much tyre data as possible in order to be able to make an informed reaction to changing circumstances.”
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This is quite well shown in the different choices the top teams have made with Mercedes going more aggressive than Ferrari and Red Bull.
Further down the grid, Kimi Raikkonen has the softest approach with nine sets of C5, three sets of C4 and just one set of C3.
The full choices can be seen below:
