BrawnGP

[BreezyRacer]

If Brawn has a high downforce car (as indicated by the slow trapspeeds) One could only argue both drivers are wankers if they are unable to warm up the tyres even in Qualy.
Or would anyone go as far as stating Brawn Aero suffers more in the heat
than Redbulls? i remember in the first years of Sauber they seemed to face that sort of trouble with loosing all front aero when temps rised.

I would only state that high drag really doesn't have to equal high downforce. While Brawn have had a good aero balance on the car from the beginning they also are the only team using that incredible cow catching, drag producing splitter design on the front. That is a centerpiece of their aero design. It would be interesting to see Brawn go more conventional on the splitter and add air straighteners to the outer corners of the sidepods like all the other teams and see where they wind up. If they don't, can you imagine how slow they will be at Spa and Monza?

If Brawn could scrape up the cash they should give it a try. IMO, this will be their best chance of a championship (either drivers or mfrs) for a good long time. If they fail this year they run the risk of low sponsorship monies in the future. They should go for it now.

[Jersey Tom]

All of this handwaving is relying on the premise that tire temperature is indeed the issue.

Don't listen to everything people say. Especially drivers.

[Scotracer]

All of this handwaving is relying on the premise that tire temperature is indeed the issue.

Don't listen to everything people say. Especially drivers.

I have been wary of what everyone has said - particularly that it can take a few LAPS for the Brawn to get its tyres up to temp. I just can't see that.

[PNSD]

The blankets get them to about 60-80 right?

I dont think its a case of taking 2/3 laps for the temperature to come, but maybe 2/3 for the tyres grip to really start to come in. Or perhaps even more true its the drivers better understanding the car and tyre characteristics given the conditions which allow the times to drop after the 2/3 laps. When the drivers feel they have no grip I think its become all too easy to simply blame temperature.

[scarbs]

If you don’t think the problem is in the tyres, I’d point to the graining (which is visible) which underlines the fact that the tyres are under-worked\ under-temp.

BTW Heater blankets are not a substitute for a car that can’t put heat into its tyres.

[ringo]

increasing camber for heat? not really .You might get abit of an help as you really work the carcass extremely ,so the heat travels more thru the tyre less thru the compound,but you might face the problem of not properly placing the rubber onto the track,I guess this is really just an act of desperation ...

If you could ,you would of course shift your ballast to the front ,to bring these up to work and the rears should be alright with a little more aggressive throttle.

Why not?
You should have an explanation as to why this does not do the trick of putting some heat in the tires. It wears the tires more, so shouldnt that mean more heat?
It could also go along with softer suspension, which could maintain temp in the turns especially on a twisty track, knowing that the camber benefits in the turns with a more pliant suspension setup.

[marcush.]

of course the graining comes from overworking the tyres but too low tyre temps

So effectively if the ambient/track temp is too low ,you face the brawn situation:
The more you push the more graining you have .A double loss situation were you have no chance with the armoury at your disposal.Only chance:wait for the temps to rise and track conditions to change (track not green anymore).

[Shrek]

isn't there like a formula or something for tire wear: more wear=cooler tire temps
and vice versa because if any racing series had as thick of tire as a passenger tire the they would melt like crazy.

[Jersey Tom]

Graining happens with the tire either too hot or cold. Not just cold.

With regard to wear and heat... the more tread thickness there is on a tire, the hotter it runs. As it wears, it will run cooler and cooler.

That can be good, or bad.

[PlatinumZealot]

Some factors affecting tyre usage:
Aero load
Static and dynamic weight distribution
Camber and camber change
Spring rates and Roll rates
Hence also KPI and castor
Damping rates (high frequency)
Inerter rates
And to an extent front pushrod offset to the upright (as it alters weight transfer in turns)

By the way for weight split, its nearer 48\52 F\R with aero split 2% rearwards from that

I know these affect the heat transfer but not how they relate to it.

I wanted to know how they affect the heat transfer; can you say how the magnitude of each one affects the heat transfer. And which ones are very similar car to car so we can have a guess at what is BRAWNGP'S problem. And maybe why they can't figure it out..

[Jersey Tom]

It's heat generation. Not heat transfer. Relative magnitudes for each? Forget it.

Comes down to this, though. Surface temperature is going to be a big function of friction and sliding between rubber and road. Undertread temperature and carcass temperature comes from tire deflection. Both are important.

[Fil]

so graining issues are a result of incorrect surface temperatures, be that by sliding too much, or not working the tyres hard enough in initial laps.

Undertread/carcass temps are initially affected by tyre pressures?

i'm scared to even begin to understand what the rest of the setup affects..

[Jersey Tom]

Ehh, not really.

If you want to talk graining, you have to understand what is really is first. People, even tire "experts," sometimes throw a bunch of stuff in the "graining" category that really aren't.



This for example, despite the claim, is not graining. I won't get into what exactly it is.

Graining and tearing and stuff like that, can happen just as much hot as it can cold. Take a rain compound for example. You can run it in the wet and it wears perfectly evenly when it's kept cold. Get it too hot on a drying track and it will grain and tear and shred off big strips of rubber at a time.

Any way you slice it, the tread isn't staying in the form it's supposed to. It's tearing apart, balling up, shredding off the tire, whatever. It doesn't have enough strength for what it's being subjected to. Part of that might be on the tire manufacturer for bringing a compound that generally just doesn't have the guts to withstand the ballpark operating range.

Some might be on the setup engineers. Set a car up with excessive understeer on already delicate tires, and it's going to be really easy to saturate and overwork, beat up on the front tires while not getting as much out of the rear.

Part might be on the driver for generally overstressing the tires no matter what temperature they're at.

Or the track, being very abrasive before it's really rubbered in.

People get into this "optimum temperature range" thing and it's really a crock of ---. Nothing is "optimum" in racing. Ever. Or else many people would be out of jobs. Nothing is constant either. Just measuring the "grip" level of a compound is tremendously complex and really not straight forward at all. Anyone claiming to have an "optimum" temperature for their tires.. manufacturers included.. I am extremely wary of.

Plus, heat is generally NOT good for rubber, or tires. That's how it goes. More heat and longer.. rubber cures more, or it reverts, or generally bad --- happens. The reason why air leaks are such a huge concern is because as the air comes out, the tire deflects more, generates more heat, runs hotter, and then at some point fails.

(So to answer your question, undertread and carcass temps are definitely affectd by tire pressure and load).

Surely you don't want the tire frozen cold, as the rubber will be brick hard or crack or not grip at all. Maybe if you run it "warm" it will have decent performance over an extended period of time. Maybe if you run it "hot" it will have more traction early on and then for one reason or another fall off. Trading one for the other is pretty nebulous and vague.

[Birel99]

JT, I know we went into some discussion about this in another thread but...

How do you increase surface temperature on a tyre?

Thank you!

[Jersey Tom]

Drive faster.