Pirelli: One-stop strategy in China on ultrasofts "possible"

The new ultrasoft compound is the quickest one out of the lot but also degrades very quickly, although Pirelli motorsports boss Mario Isola says it's not impossible to race with a one-stop strategy on ultra-softs.

"You can drive around one lap," Romain Grosjean said about the wear-and-tear of the ultra-soft tyres.

Although Grosjean is obviously exaggerating, the quick degradation is a dangerous aspect of the compound, and it has teams second-guessing whether they actually want to go into Q3 tomorrow in their cars.

"I don't know if it's so useful to be in Q3," Fernando Alonso said on the matter.

"It could be one of those races where you would rather be eleventh than ninth or tenth," Grosjean added.

The argument is that if you make it into Q3, you háve to drive that on the ultra-softs because the difference with the other compounds is so great (unless your car is exceptionally quick and you can make up the difference). However, then you'd have to start on ultra-softs too, which could prove to be a big disadvantage given the degradation.

So, the obvious solution seems to throw on those softs and make it to Q3 like that, right? The thing is, that's very, very difficult and no team is guaranteed to make it to Q3 on softs, not even Mercedes and Ferrari.

"That means that you have to weigh carefully whether you are trying to get into Q3 with Soft", Mario Isola said looking ahead to what should be an exciting qualifying session.

Isola also added that a one-stop strategy on ultra-softs is possible, although hard to pull off.

"It's not impossible, but then you have to raise the medium and drive a very long stint," he said.