Albon links ballooning rear pressures to straight-mode rules after Singapore

After the Singapore Grand Prix, Alex Albon said the soft tyre was unusually durable and consistent, and felt more like a hard compound than a soft one. He described the rear pressures as having ballooned and linked the increase to the rules for straight mode.

Pirelli brought its softest trio to Singapore: C5 soft, C4 medium and C3 hard. No driver fitted the hard during the Sprint weekend, and the soft was capable of running nearly the full Grand Prix. That long life had a limit: Hamilton’s pace eventually fell away after 44 race laps on already-used rubber.

The higher rear pressures were introduced for safety on the 2026 cars. Straight mode opens the wings on the straights and reduces downforce; a system failure could put excessive stress on the tyres. The pressure increase has had an unintended trade-off, with tyres now degrading very little.

The softs also covered most of the race distance without trouble in Azerbaijan, two races earlier. Albon said he would rather see straight mode removed, arguing that if it failed, a driver might as well stop racing.