Improvements to the tyres for racing

[ENGINE TUNER]

Personally I see the tyre strategy game where someone puts a different tyre on makes for a much more exciting race as a whole.

Was it Mercedes in Barcelona and Red Bull on France couple seasons back chasing the car ahead down after taking a different set of tyres. Fascinating racing and brings much more enjoyment to the overall race.

Now you have cars/tyres that don’t even need a pitstop because the deg is that good on the harder compounds and only stop because the rules make them.

When was the last time we seen something as interesting on tyre strategy (like mentioned above) in the last 2 seasons? We haven’t.

Tire strategy is not exciting, a pass with 2 cars on different tires or on vastly different tire ages is not exciting. Would watching sprinters wearing different type shoes be exciting? 1 sprinter with 2023 Nike, the other with 1945 adidas, another with duct tape wrapped around his feet?

A fake pass is a fake pass, and vastly different tire type or ages is a far more fake pass than even a drs pass.

F1 does not need tire gimmicks or gimmick tires, it needs better tires that everyone can push hard for a long time and in traffic that do not litter the racetrack with marbles.

[ENGINE TUNER]

They should maybe force drivers use all three sets of compounds for the race as it would maybe split strategies and mixed up the field a bit, racing in 90s and 2000s was great because there was a added excitement of fuel loads involved in strategies for Qualifying and race and tyre wars happening with different manufacturers of tires which made racing great, but only concern about refueling was always safety hence its gone and wont return ever again.

If they forced all 3 compounds to be used every car in almost every race would be a 2 stopper and the only difference would be the order when used. Then we would get fake passes with drivers on vastly different tire compounds/ages. The race should be about car and driver, not tires, luck based on timing of safety cars, pit crew mistakes, etc.

[Big Tea]

DRS trains make it processional. There should be a limit of one lap for the car infront and have to fan n2 seconds behind to reset it. This would allow following cars to 'take a turn' at passing the blocker.

[ENGINE TUNER]

DRS trains make it processional. There should be a limit of one lap for the car infront and have to fan n2 seconds behind to reset it. This would allow following cars to 'take a turn' at passing the blocker.

DRS was implemented to counteract dirty air to help overtaking, dirty air does not take a lap off, so DRS shouldn't either. The problem is the tires and the only way to fix the problem is to get better tires.

It takes a lot of effort to get and stay within 1s of the car ahead, it puts more stress thru the engine and tires to stay there for a couple laps, if the dirty air doesn't take a break, why should the DRS?

F1 was processional long before DRS

[Zynerji]

This is classic F1 - tyres are too durable so make them less durable to force more pit stops. Tyres are changed to make them less durable and then people complain that the tyres don't allow drivers to push. So the tyres are changed to make them more durable so the drivers can push for longer. Then people complain that the tyres last too long... rinse, repeat.

I totally agree with this, but if the track didnt wash overnight, those starting on hards could have done 54 laps, and then a 3 lap q3 run on softs.

Actually, that doesnt sound terrible...

[Big Tea]

DRS trains make it processional. There should be a limit of one lap for the car infront and have to fan n2 seconds behind to reset it. This would allow following cars to 'take a turn' at passing the blocker.

DRS was implemented to counteract dirty air to help overtaking, dirty air does not take a lap off, so DRS shouldn't either. The problem is the tires and the only way to fix the problem is to get better tires.

It takes a lot of effort to get and stay within 1s of the car ahead, it puts more stress thru the engine and tires to stay there for a couple laps, if the dirty air doesn't take a break, why should the DRS?

F1 was processional long before DRS

If they sit behind each other lap after lap, DRS is obviously not 'helping overtake' in these cases.
In all probability one or more of the cars in the 'train' could get but the leading car if not for the others between them and the second car could probably try far harder to overtake if not for protecting their position from the 'train' behind them.

The only cars that seem to benefit from DRS now are those who would not need it anyway.
If they can not pass within a lop or two, no problem, drop back and try again the next lap with a run up.
If another car passes them in the meantime, then they were not quick enough anyway and that car passing the 'blocker' will give them DRS so the whole train moves along more quickly.
It seems to create more poor racing than it assists for everyone except the leading few cars who get blue flags and do not really need it.

[ENGINE TUNER]

DRS trains make it processional. There should be a limit of one lap for the car infront and have to fan n2 seconds behind to reset it. This would allow following cars to 'take a turn' at passing the blocker.

DRS was implemented to counteract dirty air to help overtaking, dirty air does not take a lap off, so DRS shouldn't either. The problem is the tires and the only way to fix the problem is to get better tires.

It takes a lot of effort to get and stay within 1s of the car ahead, it puts more stress thru the engine and tires to stay there for a couple laps, if the dirty air doesn't take a break, why should the DRS?

F1 was processional long before DRS

If they sit behind each other lap after lap, DRS is obviously not 'helping overtake' in these cases.
In all probability one or more of the cars in the 'train' could get but the leading car if not for the others between them and the second car could probably try far harder to overtake if not for protecting their position from the 'train' behind them.

The only cars that seem to benefit from DRS now are those who would not need it anyway.
If they can not pass within a lop or two, no problem, drop back and try again the next lap with a run up.
If another car passes them in the meantime, then they were not quick enough anyway and that car passing the 'blocker' will give them DRS so the whole train moves along more quickly.
It seems to create more poor racing than it assists for everyone except the leading few cars who get blue flags and do not really need it.

Blue flags only exist for cars being lapped and cars coming out of the pit(iirc).

F1 was processional LONG before DRS, but the terrible pirelli tires make DRS more necessary.

Watch the 2005 season, every team could push 100% every lap for the whole race on 1 set of tires, passing was decent(and a higher% on track) and marbles were minimal. Kimi won from 15th in Suzuka. The tires were phenomenal and probably better(faster, more durable, safer, and lighter) than anything Pirelli has ever provided F1.

DRS helps the trailing driver keep pressure on the leading driver. Sometimes the zone length is too long, but it seemed about right in Miami, we saw passes into T1, T10 and T17, and we saw a lot of defenses in those places as well, we also saw drivers pass in T17 and then get passed themselves in T1.

If they sit behind each other lap after lap then they probably started in the race in about speed order with slower cars in the back and faster ones ahead of them, that is exactly how qualifying works, and expecting something different from lining them up from fast to slow would be lunacy. Unfortunately that has always been how the cars are lined up and I don't see it changing any time soon.

[Farnborough]

One of the most significant contribution to current cars is the over 300kg weight gain.

They're faster generally too, making tyre performance all the more acute as a deferentiator in each vehicle matching another. Cascade of diminished returns as the tyres all have to be driven into such a tight performance frame to extract the ultimate lap time. There's no real easy answer to that.

If the vehicle can't bring the tyres there with driver setup and driven input, then the results show very little for the effort from all involved.

They speak of "tyre whisperer" type driver, and some seem able to extract longer life from them.

One interesting thing from Miami this last race. Alonso and his pace on medium at the stint end, when most complained of graining (uncontrolled build of rubber bits still attached to surface) and the reduction in front grip particularly, he was making them give performance there.
Kimi Rikenon observed some years ago that Alonso didn't really get graining when everyone else did. He's probably one of the most aggressive users of push understeer I've ever seen, which appears to scrub them effectively. Something not often seen in how they are driven now.