By: There is a festive atmosphere at COTA for the Italian fans. Andrea Kimi Antonelli will have his first match point, which could already secure him the world title. Starting from pole, the 20-year-old must ensure he makes no mistakes, win the race and wait for his destiny to unfold. With five races still to be completed, for the mathematics to be on his side, he will not only need to win but also require Hamilton to finish fifth or lower, while Russell must finish no higher than ninth.
Difficult, but not impossible, given that Lewis starts fifth and Russell will line up in P6. The Austin circuit is, among other things, a particularly demanding track for the drivers. Its bumps could push them to the limit physically.
Pirelli preview - Circuit of the Americas - 56 laps
Furthermore, for this edition, Pirelli has chosen the middle compounds in its range in order to increase degradation and the likelihood of a race featuring more than one pit stop (in 2025, the selection was C1-C3-C4). Before sharing our own view, though, let us look at what Pirelli motorsport director Dario Marrafuschi said ahead of the GP: “The C4, already in practice, confirmed a performance gap over the C3 in terms of grip and lap time. This will broaden the range of options available to the teams. That is also because the Medium and Soft proved to be quite close over race distance. On paper, the one-stop strategy represents the most effective option. Soft-Medium could be the most popular choice to maximise the grip advantage offered by the C4.”
“The Hard remains a valid option for the second stint, regardless of whether drivers choose to start on Soft or Medium. If there is a neutralisation in the early stages of the race, some may decide to make a stop and complete the event using only the C2. If degradation proves higher than expected, a two-stop Soft-Medium-Soft strategy could also be considered. In terms of total race time, the one-stop strategy is close to the two-stop option. For the two-stop strategy to work, track position and possible traffic must be taken into account. The teams' choices will be heavily influenced by temperatures and track evolution,” the Italian manager concluded in comments to Pirelli.
Far from straightforward choices for the teams
We agree with all of that, although there is one point we would add. Several teams have struggled to manage the C3 over the course of the year, the compound serving as the Medium tyre this weekend. If track temperatures remain below 40°C, as they did in qualifying, that could help drivers manage it. But should temperatures rise above that threshold, teams will probably lean more towards a strategy involving the Soft and Hard tyres to a greater extent.
That does not mean the Medium will be ruled out. Its use will depend heavily on the characteristics of each car. We expect the start to feature a majority of Soft tyres, with a fair number of yellow-walled compounds too. Afterwards, the Hard, also given Norris' competitiveness on Friday (read here), could be a valid option. We expect Ferrari and McLaren to take this route.
With temperatures above 40°C, we believe it will be almost an inevitable choice for Hamilton and Leclerc. Degradation could become a crucial factor and, at that point, an attacking S-H-S strategy would not be a bad idea. Unfortunately, races with high degradation and the C3 assigned as the Medium are not the kind of events in which Ferrari excels. However, if Lewis and Charles can maximise the potential of the C4, we could still see an entertaining race. The success of their weekend will depend above all on this.
As for Antonelli and Verstappen, neither should have any particular issues starting on the C3 Medium. They too have problems to solve with this compound, but the C4, especially in high temperatures, could have a rather short lifespan in the race. In their case, the C3 could make a better contribution in the first stint but, as Marrafuschi stated, it is difficult to predict exactly what choices the teams will make. Track temperatures will play a crucial role today.
Cover and interior photos by Luca Martini / WHYOUT Images
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