According to McLaren's Jenson Button, the crowd in the grandstands and worldwide fans watching the running on TV will be shocked by the multitude of overtaking maneuvers that will take place on the Melbourne track during the one and a half hours of action on Sunday. And it won't be the addition of the new wing that'll do the trick, but the new Pirelli tires which everyone will try to conserve in the late stages of the race.
Due to the poor understanding of the highly degradable Pirelli tires this off-season, drivers will not know exactly what to expect in Melbourne, and will likely be caught in their final stint looking after their rubber. That's the argument of 2009 F1 champion Button, who predicts a stunning course of events this weekend.
“I think you will see so much overtaking in the last stint here that it will shock everyone,” he told the media in Melbourne. “It is going to go to the last corner in this race, which is great. I don't know if all of the races will be like that, but this one will because we don't understand the tires yet.”
“For me the last stint is important to look after the tires – the first two or three not so much because the important thing, as everyone knows, is to stop one lap before everyone else. If you do that you will overtake them because you will put new tyres on and go three seconds per lap quicker. It will be an interesting one.”
“The main thing is who is going to be brave enough to stop the earliest, because you might think you have made a lot of ground up after the first stop, but you could lose it all again on the last stop or last stint. It is a balancing act and it is going to take a few races to work out what the best strategy is,” he added.
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