Teams all too frequently bin off one of the choices – either because the soft is too aggressive, the medium falls into no-man's land, or the hard is too conservative – but this weekend's race in Japan has left what Pirelli's head of car racing Mario Isola says is a real "headache" for strategists.
With high-degradation Suzuka making a one-stop pretty much a no-goer (unless we end up with a lengthy safety car period at the perfect point), F1 teams are going to be burning the midnight oil tonight trying to work out how best to plot their way through the various soft/medium/hard combinations that are in play.
