It looks like another example of unintended consequence.
The talk before the tyre was released, was that they were going for a harder compound to (yes) reduce lap times but mainly to increase tyre life. In truth the old tyre lasted pretty well. It's fairly obvious that a harder tyre with show it's initial drop-off earlier, then stabalise and run consistent lap times for longer. Result, everyone buys more tyres to benifit from that initial pre-drop off period.
Also being harder, it's now even more benificial to use inter's, right up to point a meeting is declared dry, so over the course of a season you'll buy more wets as well.
The trouble with all these type of changes, it seems to be selected teams and selected drivers who trial them first. Really they should have selected a club and given the whole cadet class free tyres to use over a couple of club rounds and get them to complete a survey, giving feedback on the effects on lap time, set-up and tyre degradationn between sessions.
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