Jenson Button predicts vast amounts of overtaking at this weekends Australian Grand Prix, particularly in the final stint which could see drivers struggling to stay on-track with bald Pirelli tyres.
The 2009 world champion believes it could come as a shock to fans’ as they witness overtaking until the very final lap.
“I think you’ll see so much overtaking in the last stint it will shock everyone,” he is quoted as saying by ITV-F1.
“It’s going to be until the last corner I think this race, which is great. I don’t know if all of them will be like that because we don’t understand the tyres yet.”
Button, as have many drivers, predicts a three-stop strategy which will see the teams pitting their drivers early to gain places during the race – something which could be detrimental to the final result.
“It’s very complicated: if we’re doing a three-stop race and it’s 60 laps long you’re going to be stopping every 15 laps.
“In the real world that would be the quickest way to the end of the race, but if everyone’s stopping on lap 15, you want to stop on lap 14 as you’ll overtake them.
“The problem is everyone is going to be thinking in that same way, so they are going to be bringing it [the first pit stop] further and further forward so you could be stopping on lap nine,” he added.
“Then you’ve got to do the rest of the race with two stops on two sets of tyres and they’re not going to last that long – it’s pretty much impossible for them to last that long with the degradation.
“So the last few stops are going to be happening quite early and the last stint is the one where you need tyre management.”
