F1 teams at the mercy of Pirelli gamble in Malaysia

F1 teams will be facing various unknowns this weekend in Malaysia as the sport returns to the Sepang International Circuit for the first time in nine years.

With many of the teams relying on historical data for their pre-weekend estimations, this is also the case for tyre supplier Pirelli.

Just 10 weeks separated the announcement of Sepang's return on July 26 and race day on October 4.

Normally, Pirelli bases its compound choice for a weekend on a range of data, ideally recent, covering tyre degradation and grip levels at the circuit in question.

But with limited time available, Pirelli opted to decide its tyre compounds based on the information it had from its last visit to Malaysia.

"Since 2011, I think we went all the years, so we have a good history," said Pirelli head of motorsport Dario Marrafuschi.

"2017 was the first year with wider tyres at that time compared to the previous one, and in terms of balance between tyre size and vehicle package, it was reasonably close to what we have today.

"To answer your question, I would base our decisions on 2017 results, and would go for a choice in line with what we did that year, not in 2016, 2015, or 2014."

Big question mark for teams

Pirelli has confirmed that it will bring the C2 (hard), C3 (medium), and C4 (soft) to Sepang this weekend.

In certain cases, such as new or returning venues, Pirelli sends personnel to the location to map everything out in advance, and that forms the basis for the selection of the three compounds brought to the race.

But this was not possible on this occasion, as the Italian marque simply did not have the time to carry out the job.

"We will not have enough time to send some people there to make the measurements because we need to prepare the materials as soon as possible," Marrafuschi added.

"I don't think we can send anyone to look at the asphalt before."

Pirelli's decision makes it somewhat a shot in the dark, as it is relying on nine-year-old data for its assumptions.

This also makes it difficult for the teams to prepare for the weekend, since not only has the current generation of cars not yet raced there, but neither has the previous ground-effect generation.

Of course, they can test a few things on the simulator, but there are still major gaps in the available track data. This means the teams also can't use the simulator to verify whether the tyres are actually suitable for the track.