Tires

Everything a driver does travels through four contact patches roughly the size of postcards. Tires are the single biggest performance variable in F1 — a car on the right rubber at the right temperature can be seconds faster than the same car on the wrong one.

Pirelli brings three dry compounds to each race, labeled soft (red), medium (yellow) and hard (white) from a larger family. Softer rubber grips better but wears faster; the race-day question is always speed now versus endurance later.

Slicks work in a narrow window, roughly 90–110°C. Below it the rubber is stiff and slides ('graining' as the cold surface tears); above it the tire overheats and blisters. Drivers weave on formation laps, brake hard deliberately, and manage pace precisely to keep tires in the window.

Different cars stress tires differently — one team's car might switch tires on instantly but cook them, another warms them slowly but preserves them. These 'tire characters' shape entire seasons.

Tires lose performance with wear and heat cycles — 'degradation'. It isn't linear: past a threshold, grip collapses suddenly. Strategists call it the cliff, and reading its approach (rising lap times, sliding, driver reports) is the trigger for most pit calls.

Managing 'deg' is a driving skill of its own: the best tire managers — Pérez, Sainz, historically Button and Prost — win races on strategy options their gentler style unlocks.

Intermediates (green stripe) handle damp tracks; full wets (blue stripe) clear standing water at up to 85 liters per second. Both generate heat differently than slicks, and the crossover moments between them decide wet races.