As usual, the quickest times came at the end of each session, with track temperatures dropping all the time and plenty of action; underlining just how close the margins are at this first race of the season. The tyre performance was strong on each compound, with Ferrari showing plenty of speed on the medium in Q1 as well. With all three potential race strategies very close on paper, as usual it will come down to track temperature and degradation of the soft tyre in particular on race day. With higher temperatures, the degradation of the soft tyre also tends to be higher – pushing teams towards an earlier switch to a harder compound, or more than one stop.