What does Barcelona tires tell us about who is fastest

It's pretty clear that Aldo Costa has produced another dominating car

Pirelli said there is around 0.7 seconds between the ultrasoft and the hypersoft F1 tires. It is understood the delta between the medium and soft is around 0.85s, the soft to supersoft around 0.4s and supersoft to ultrasoft around 0.6s.

So let's see if we can tell which car is fastest using each drivers fastest time of the day and what tire they were on. We then use the above differences between the tire type and compute the theoretical lap time the driver would have turned if he was on hyper-soft tires at the time. From this analysis the Mercedes car is about 3/4 sec. per lap faster than the Red Bull and 9/10ths sec per lap faster than the Ferrari.

Of course we do not know what fuel load the drivers were running, or whether their engines were turned up to maximum power, but from this analysis it appears the Aldo Costa designed Mercedes will dominate once again in 2018.

Medium – Base
Soft -0.85s
Supersoft – 1.25s
Ultrasoft – 1.85s
Hypersoft – 2.55s

Theoretical Fastest possible Times if on Hyper-Soft Tires