The Canadian GP looks set to become a battle of the strategies with Red Bull and Robert Kubica starting on the hard or prime tyre and the remaining seven drivers in the top ten, including pole sitter Lewis Hamilton, starting on the softer, option tyre.
Martin Whitmarsh has defended his teams strategy, after a lengthy team discussion they are happy with their choice.
“We had quite a lot of debate in the team as to which way we should go, I guess we’ll know in 24 hours whether we got it right,” he told AdamCooperF1.com.
“Inevitably everyone has to use the option tyre at some point, and I think it will be difficult for someone who starts on the prime to say run 20-30 laps and then switch to the option and then go to the end. So I think then definitely you have to two-stop if you start on the prime.
“Obviously we’ve got two guys who have got to look after the tyres at the start of the race, and we’ll see how it works out.”
Whitmarsh is hoping for a safety car period at the right time to help their strategy play out. With close walls and an average 1.4 safety cars per race in Canada, it’s quite likely it will happen at some point.
“If there are some safety cars that will either make it look a better decision or worse decision, but in terms of getting to the end you have to run at some point with the option tyre, it’s clearly going to be a short stint, or relatively short stint, and as everyone had to do that, we’re choosing to do it at the beginning of the race.”
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