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Pirelli reveal driver tyre choices for China

05 Apr 2016

Pirelli have revealed the tyres that each driver has selected for the third race of the season in China on April 17.

Once again Mercedes duo Lewis Hamilton and his world championship-leading team mate Nico Rosberg have picked different allocations, with the former plumping for an extra set of mediums and the latter an extra set of softs.

Four other teams have differing strategies amongst their drivers: Williams, Renault, Toro Rosso and Haas.

Ferrari have an extra set of supersofts available to them compared to chief rivals Mercedes, but not as many as Williams, McLaren and Haas, who have all opted for seven sets of the red-marked tyre compound.

The individual driver choices are shown below:

DRIVER TEAM MEDIUM SOFT SUPERSOFT
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 4 4 5
Nico Rosberg Mercedes 3 5 5
Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 3 4 6
Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 3 4 6
Valtteri Bottas Williams 2 4 7
Felipe Massa Williams 1 5 7
Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 2 5 6
Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 2 5 6
Kevin Magnussen Renault 2 5 6
Jolyon Palmer Renault 3 4 6
Nico Hulkenberg Force India 2 5 6
Sergio Perez Force India 2 5 6
Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 3 5 5
Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 2 6 5
Fernando Alonso McLaren 2 4 7
Jenson Button McLaren 2 4 7
Marcus Ericsson Sauber 5 4 4
Felipe Nasr Sauber 5 4 4
Pascal Wehrlein Manor 4 5 4
Rio Haryanto Manor 4 5 4
Romain Grosjean Haas 1 5 7
Esteban Gutierrez Haas 2 4 7


Under the 2016 regulations, Pirelli make three of their five dry-weather tyre compounds available at each event.

The Italian company allocates two sets of tyres for the race (only one of which must be used) and one set which can only be used in Q3 (the softest of the chosen three compounds).  Each driver is then able to choose 10 further sets of tyres from the three compounds - which for China are supersoft, soft and medium - to take their weekend allocation to 13.