Pirelli brings a harder set of tyres to Baku, and last year is the reason

Pirelli has brought a harder set of tyres to Baku than it did a year ago, and the reason is that the softest one it brought last time never turned a lap in the race.

For the Azerbaijan Grand Prix the three compounds are the C3 as Hard, the C4 as Medium and the C5 as Soft. In 2025 the whole selection sat one step softer, with the C6 as the Soft. Teams had that tyre available and left it in the garage.

The softest tyre in the range was never raced

Pirelli’s own account of last year is blunt about why. Drivers preferred to extend their stints and keep their strategic options open by running the two harder tyres instead. Eleven started the race on the Medium and nine on the Hard. Every one of the twenty made a single pit stop. The Soft never appeared on Sunday at all.

Esteban Ocon produced the extreme version of that. He was forced into the pits on the opening lap to replace a damaged front wing, took a set of Mediums, and ran the entire remaining race distance on them.

New asphalt in three corners

Some of the public streets that make up the circuit have been resurfaced since last year. The work covers sections of Turns 2, 3 and 4. Pirelli expects the new asphalt, which is limited to those specific areas, to leave tyre behaviour broadly unchanged, and it expects the usual street-circuit story instead: low grip at the start of the weekend, then a significant improvement as rubber builds up on the surface.

Baku cools tyres down rather than heating them up

This is the part worth watching. The long full-throttle run from the final corner to Turn 1 does not load the tyres, it cools them, and modern wheel rim design has made that effect stronger. A cold front tyre arriving at a heavy braking zone is a lock-up waiting to happen, and Baku’s Turn 1 is one of the heaviest braking zones of the season.

The ambient conditions push in the same direction. Baku is warm, but the buildings that line the circuit throw shade across large parts of it, which keeps the track temperature down.

Graining is possible in the opening sessions while grip is still low, though Pirelli does not expect it to decide anything.

One stop, and the Hard may sit out again

The asphalt is smooth and not very abrasive, so wear and degradation should both be very low. Pirelli’s expectation is a one-stop race. It also thinks the C5 can run long stints here, pointing to Monza, a circuit that shares Baku’s mix of long straights and heavy braking. On that reading the Hard could be overlooked by much of the field for a second year running, just one compound further down the range.

None of which makes the tyres easy. Baku is a stop-and-go circuit with a lot of low-speed acceleration out of right-angle corners, so braking stability and traction on exit matter more than cornering grip, and a low-drag car has a clear advantage down a two-kilometre straight.

The tenth Grand Prix on these streets

Saturday’s race is the tenth Formula 1 event held in Baku. Eight have run under the Azerbaijan Grand Prix name and one, in 2016, as the European Grand Prix. Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen are the only drivers to have won here more than once, with two apiece. Red Bull has five wins, more than any other team. Charles Leclerc has started from pole four times, more than anyone.

The circuit itself is 6.003 kilometres and 20 corners, several of them at right angles, with the narrow run through the old city at one end and that enormous straight at the other.

The interesting number is zero

Our eye is on how little the softest tyre gets used. Pirelli spent last year’s Baku weekend with a compound nobody wanted to race, and has quietly stepped away from it. If the C5 now goes the same way, ignored on Saturday in favour of long stints on the C4, then the tyre that has actually been chosen for this race is the middle one, and the other two are there to make up a set of three.

That would say something about Baku rather than about Pirelli. A circuit with almost no degradation and one enormous overtaking straight does not reward stopping twice, and everything that follows from that is a choice teams make about track position, not about grip.

All of the above comes from Pirelli’s own preview for the weekend. Our Azerbaijan Grand Prix schedule and start times has every session, and the race is on Saturday.