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Pirelli chooses hypersoft tyres for Canadian GP

Pirelli has announced that its new hypersoft tyre will feature at the Canadian Grand Prix in what is the first officially confirmed appearance of the softest tyre in its revised range.

Red Bull Racing RB14 front wheel and Pirelli tyre

Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team mechanic washes Pirelli tyres

A McLaren mechanic wheels a trolley of Pirelli tyres

Red Bull mechanics wait outside of their garage with a Pirelli tyre

Red Bull Racing mechanic and Pirelli tyre

However, it is also likely to be seen two weeks earlier in Monaco, although the formal selections for European races are made later than those for flyaway events.

The supersoft and ultrasoft will also be seen in Canada, while Pirelli has named the medium, soft and supersoft as its three choices for the Spanish GP.

Due to to the deadlines imposed by the FIA to help Pirelli with the logistical challenge of making and shipping tyres to the opening flyaway races, the choices for Australia, Bahrain, China and Azerbaijan were made some weeks ago, in some cases as early as December.

Canada is the next flyaway race, and the choice was due to have been made already.

However, the FIA allowed Pirelli extra time and linked the Montreal deadline with that for the first European event in Spain – allowing data from testing last week and this week to be used to inform the choice.

"We have a deadline that is March 8th to select the compounds for Barcelona and Canada," explained Pirelli F1 boss Mario Isola.

"Canada was February 22nd, but we spoke to the FIA and the teams to postpone the deadline to March 8th together with Barcelona, in order to collect more data from this test, because with our logistics, it's possible to produce and ship the tyre in time."

By delaying the Montreal decision until well into the test programme, Pirelli and the teams were able to learn a lot more about the hypersoft, which has performed well on Barcelona's new surface, although it still too soft to be considered for the Spanish GP weekend.

"The hypersoft hung on a lot better than we expected," said Renault technical director Nick Chester.

"We thought it might be a single lap tyre but Nico [Hulkenberg] had three good push laps on it with cool laps in-between and was quickest on his last one.

"For Carlos [Sainz] it wasn't quite the same: his best was a second push lap. Generally it was hanging on okay. It was a bit grained by the last lap but for a high energy track like here it was hanging on quite well."