Tyres: there is often a tendency to dismiss them as “round, black and boring”. In Formula One, you usually go on about them too long at your peril and find your audience beginning to snooze – unless they are Mario Isola or Luca Colajanni from Pirelli.

But on April 7 the disparate performance of their three compounds, the C1 Hard, the C2 Medium and the C3 Soft – distinguished respectively by their white, yellow and red sidewalls – had them all as potentially suitable race tyres and created several different possible race strategies.