In the midst of the European summer, it’s hard to blame anyone for wanting to trade the Spanish countryside for the beaches along Spain’s south-west coast, especially with a luxurious glass of locally grown sherry in hand, from the picturesque region bordering the Strait of Gibraltar.

Tyre wear was the big ticket item in the series’ previous outing here, and it seems that element remains on this occasion; but Gen 3 rubber and its ability to plateau for an extended period of time are going to take a large portion of that away.

Speaking with Brian Borg and Jack Widdas of Racekraft Simulations about some of their early testing, there is a significant fall off in tyres over the first three laps before we hit the stabilisation point. From here, the tyres hang on to the end of the stint despite experiencing a tyre wear warning from the in-sim Crew Chief around 18-20 laps into the stint. 

The big thing to consider as we get into the race is track temperature. It’s going to be hot, really hot, 58°C hot! Bacon cooked fresh off the tarmac? Tyres certainly will be!

The other big factor after looking into some of the practice sessions is going to be the marbles off line. We saw them back in the Qualifying Series from Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, and I would expect the feeling to be quite similar here. Getting your overtakes done before the marbles build up will be critical, and anything after the fact will be a sight to behold

With last year’s event being the first time the series competed at Jerez, we got the first opportunity to witness the uniqueness of this race. We’re one of the few series that regularly talks about tyre wear – a byproduct of raw power, skinny tyres, and a lack of driving aids – and on that day, it was tested in full. 

The fastest race lap was set by Filsell with a 1:40.653, only three tenths slower than qualifying. But that was with a lightened car and later in the afternoon when the track had cooled significantly. The next best lap time was six tenths slower, an omen of more Filsell dominance to come.

The big one when crunching pace numbers is the average lap times, and Filsell was the only driver in the 1:43’s last time out. That's three seconds of tyre fall off on the average run, with rubber only degrading at a steeper rate after that.

Fuel tanks have also been expanded back to the full 133 litres, up from the gamble of the 40% tank at Spa. This pushes the max stint length out to 34-35 laps – which sits right on two-thirds race distance – and will only require half a tank of fuel, or around 64 litres, to get home.

This is where the strategy gain can be made. Points to consider:

• Tyres are covered by 20 litres of fuel, or approximately a nine-second stop.
• That tyre stop coverage leaves around 24 litres of fuel to be accounted for, managed through a combination of fuel saving and fuel drops across both stops. (20 litres x 2 tyre sets = 40 litres, leaving 24 litres remaining.)
• Running a light car at every opportunity is the way to go.

With this in mind, mathematically the best way to connect the dots is going to be pitting at the end of Lap 17, throwing 20 litres of fuel in the tank, pitting at the end of Lap 34 and then adding the remaining 44 litres.

Regardless, you are going to be in trouble if you have a car that is chewing through its tyres. How you manage that is going to be the name of the game come Wednesday night.

See you all at 7.45pm AEST on Wednesday for a taste of the summer in Spain!