Pirelli releases tire choices for first three F1 races for 2018

It's not yet 2018 but Pirelli, the official tire supplier for Formula One, has already released the tire compounds that will be used in the first three races for next year's season.

So far, the newly-introduced Superhard and Hypersoft won't be making their racing debuts just yet. Instead, a mix of soft and medium compund tires will be used for the Australian, Bahrain and Chinese Grand Prix.

The Melbourne season-opener will see the use of the yellow-marked soft, red-marked supersoft and purple-marked ultrasoft. Meanwhile, Bahrain will have the white-marked medium, soft and supersoft on the tarmac. Lastly, China will consist of medium, soft and ultrasoft tire compounds.

As before, a total of three compounds will be offered for each race. Also, each driver must save one set of the three nominated compounds for the final Q3 phase of qualifying. This set will then be returned for those who qualify in the top ten. However, the remaining drivers will get to use them for the race.

Teams are free to choose the remaing ten sets, allowing them to have 13 sets in total per driver for the weekend.