Paul Hembery: “It was a very fast qualifying and the tyres stood up well to the high-speed demands of Suzuka circuit, with no wear or degradation beyond the usual parameters. However, it now seems to become a trend that some cars qualifying in Q3 do not set a time in order to save tyres, so we will be working with the teams and the FIA to find a solution that is acceptable to everybody to avoid this kind of scenario in the future, as it is not fair on the spectators.
“We have made a number of proposals in the past, which the teams rejected, but today showed that this remains a problem, which we would like to solve. Looking ahead to the race, with quite a significant lap time difference between the soft and the hard tyres, the possibilities for interesting strategies are wide open this weekend. The trade-off for this extra performance of the soft tyre is the fact that the crossover point, where the medium tyre becomes quicker, might come after only five or six laps. So it’s going to be interesting to see what the teams all opt for.”
