Pirelli drops soft tire for Bahrain

(GMM) Pirelli has decided against taking its soft tire compound to this weekend's Bahrain grand prix.

Before the season began, F1's official tire supplier announced that it would take its hard and soft tires to the island Kingdom.

"This is designed to ensure plenty of speed in qualifying coupled with the durability needed for the race," Pirelli in a pre-season statement.

But the Italian marque has now announced that, in fact, the hard and medium compound tires will be raced this weekend.

The news follows the Chinese grand prix, where Pirelli was heavily criticized when the soft compound lasted only a few laps at the Shanghai circuit.

Pirelli said on Monday that "tire degradation (is) expected to be reasonably high (in Bahrain), which is why the two hardest compounds of the range have been nominated."

Paul Hembery commented: "It's one of the most demanding tracks of the year for the tires, mostly because of the high ambient and track temperatures."