Tyre Compounds
VerifiedThe range of dry tyres a team can pick from, and the trade of outright speed against how long they last.
Pirelli brings a range of dry-weather tyres graded from the hardest to the softest. For each weekend it nominates three of them, and those become the soft, medium, and hard for that event. So the 'soft' at one track can be a different underlying rubber than the 'soft' at another.
Softer tyres grip harder and set faster lap times, but they wear out sooner. Harder tyres give up some outright pace for a longer, steadier life. Choosing which to run, and for how long, is the heart of race strategy.
Because the three chosen tyres differ track to track, the compound that ends up dominating a race is partly a function of what was brought that weekend.