Mercedes Opt for a Conservative Approach for Canada

With the Monaco hypersoft debacle still haunting Mercedes, the German team are not taking any chances. The Monaco GP marked the debut race appearance for the pink-banded hypersoft tires.

The compound is again set to make an appearance in Canada in June. This time, Mercedes appears to be giving the compound a wide berth in Canada.

While Ferrari, Red Bull, Force India, Renault and Toro Rosso took 8 sets of the hypersofts to Montreal. Williams, Haas, McLaren and Sauber took 7 sets. But the world champions opted to take a measly 5 sets, obviously not trusting themselves with it.

Now, the German outfit compensated for the lack of hypersofts by stocking up on the ultrasofts, taking 5 sets. Fellow Mercedes customer Force India took 2 sets of ultrasofts. Williams split their Sergey Sirotkin take 2 sets, and Lance Stroll just 1.

Surprisingly, Stroll, who finished ninth last year, placed a lot of faith in the supersofts for his home race. The Canadian youngster opted for 5 sets of the red-banded prime tires. On the other hand, the majority decided to run only two or three sets.

The 2017 Canadian GP saw the softs, supersofts and ultrasofts in action. Lewis Hamilton took victory in the race on a one-stop strategy. The reigning world champion started on the ultrasofts before switching to supers.

Only two drivers in the top fourteen stopped more than once, fourth-placed Sebastian Vettel and seventh-placed Kimi Raikkonen.

Mercedes had a miserable weekend in Monte Carlo where they were unable to gel with the hypersofts. This could possibly leave them vulnerable for the race, unless it was a combination of the circuit with the tires.

One can only hope for their sake that Mercedes get to the bottom of the issues so that they can challenge Ferrari and Red Bull.