Were the super-hard tyres ever actually used?

Question

For the 2018 F1 season, Pirelli introduced two new tyre compounds - the hypersoft, and the super-hard. For 2019, the compound system will be simplified so that at each race they'll simply be known as "soft, medium, and hard", regardless of the actual compounds being used.

The hypersoft was used at a number of races - including the season finale at Abu Dhabi - but I don't recall the super-hard ever actually being brought to a Grand Prix, let alone used at one.

Did any team ever run the super-hard tyre during a competitive session (i.e. practice, qualifying, or the race)?

Answer 1

No. It was never offered or wanted.

Even the Hard compound was only offered once, and the Medium in barely more than half the races of the season.

For each race (alphabetical) the compounds (hardest to softest) available were

Abu Dhabi: SS, US, HS

Australia: S, SS, US

Austria: S, SS, US

Azerbaijan: S, SS, US

Bahrain: M, S, SS

Belgium: M, S, SS

Brazil: M, S, SS

Canada: SS, US, HS

China: M, S, US

France: S, SS, US

Germany: M, S, US

Great Britain: H, M, S

Hungary: M, S, US

Italy: M, S, SS

Japan: M, S, SS

Mexico: SS, US, HS

Monaco: SS, US, HS

Russia: S, US, HS

Spain: M, S, SS

Singapore: S, US, HS

United States: S, SS, US

All tyres selections verified from Pirelli

Answer 2

They didn't introduce a new super-hard as such, they just rebranded every existing tyre as one designation harder, and introduced two newly developed compounds at the softest end. So the 2018 super-hard was the 2017 hard. Pirelli didn't do any development work to create it for 2018.

There was never an intention to use it in 2018, they kept it as an option in case early in the season they found all their tyres were too soft, and they needed to bring harder tyres than originally expected to later races. As the tyres performed as expected, this never happened, and so it never got used.