Among the many new changes that the 2022 season has brought in are the new 18-inch tires. These tires are more robust and allow drivers to follow each other more closely without overheating. Giving his take on the new tires, Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin mentioned that the new tires have completely thrown everyone’s strategy into a spin.

Shovlin revealed that teams now have very little idea about the tires their rival team would be starting the race on. And this is due to the fact that, unlike last year, the new rules in the 2022 season allow teams to choose the tire of their choice at the start of the race.

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This further means that F1 now has a mixed-up grid with some teams targeting long runs while some looking for instant gains with softer tires.

Mercedes engineering head on how new 2022 tires have affected the strategies

The strategic angle of the 2022 season has become one of the most interesting aspects of races. Since the team has now got the option to choose any tires for the race start, it is harder for teams to predict each other’s strategy.

Shovlin too recognized that new tires have impacted the level of strategic planning.

“The rule now is really very simple. You don’t know what tires people are going to be on until the blankets are off, so there is a bit more of an unknown. We can’t do quite the same level of planning when we are looking at the strategy,” said Andrew.

“It will mean we will get a bit more variety. So you might have someone that has qualified third or fourth on the grid who decides that they are not going to get into first position off the start,” said the Mercedes engineering director.

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Although this puts the race strategists in a tough spot and can also give a bit of a disadvantage to some teams, it surely provides much more exciting racing for the fans.

However, things will certainly not stay the same as, over the season, the teams will crack the different new tire strategies and will be able to predict other teams’ strategies accordingly.