Pirelli will supply the teams with an additional set of hard tyres in Austin in order to encourage increased running during practice.
The extra laps should help the teams to learn the new circuit which is expected to be very ‘green’ due to the lack of running on the newly-laid surface.
Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery admits the combination of the hard and medium compound is a conservative choice, selected due to the unknowns of a completely new circuit.
“Stepping into the unknown is a situation that we are used to: last season the majority of tracks were completely new to us,” he said.
“We’ve chosen the hard and the medium compounds as we think it will be quite a demanding track, based on the asphalt samples and simulation data we have gathered.
“Naturally we’ve leaned towards a slightly more conservative choice in order to cover every possibility at a brand new circuit, but the tyre choice in Abu Dhabi was also conservative and yet we saw one of the most exciting races of the year.”
