Red Bull suspects McLaren and a few other teams of filling water into the tyres

[McL-H]

So McLaren was driving with full wet tyres after all.

[TimW]

It's not difficult to make an assumption it's about preventing over heating, and that a small amount of water coated on the inside of the tread through centrifugal force would be helpful.
.

That will certainly not be the case. You absolutely do not want to risk having liquid water inside the tire, because your pressures would be out off control. E.g from 80 to 100 degC the water vapour pressure increases by 0.5 bar/7psi. So your tire pressure would increase by that amount+ the thermal expansion of the air itself.

But according to the graph I posted before, from 40 to 70% humidity your heat transfer almost doubles. With ~100 liter air volume, 30% increase in humidity is in the range of 20cc of water at 80degC. Sounds like something doable to sneak in. At 70% humidity you don't need to worry about condensation (and thus wild pressure fluctuations).

From a technical point of view, it is not a wild accusation to me.

[dia6olo]

From The Race

you can say that about races after the asymmetric brake, bib and so on...

Indeed. I'm just posting what red bull thinks

Here's the article https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/fres ... ing%20more.

If red bull has race winning pace in the remaining 3 races (4 including Brazil/Brazil sprint) after not having it for a long time then it's pretty good confirmation?

I wouldn't count Brazil, the conditions played a HUGE part.
Alpine's performance can vouch for that.

[organic]

you can say that about races after the asymmetric brake, bib and so on...

Indeed. I'm just posting what red bull thinks

Here's the article https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/fres ... ing%20more.

If red bull has race winning pace in the remaining 3 races (4 including Brazil/Brazil sprint) after not having it for a long time then it's pretty good confirmation?

I wouldn't count Brazil, the conditions played a HUGE part.
Alpine's performance can vouch for that.

I think they are talking about the sprint only, where it looked like red bull were at least equal fastest if not fastest. It is the first time in months that red bull have had the fastest car in race conditions - there was no dropoff in quali-> race performance which had become the norm for the year.

[Sevach]

I think they are talking about the sprint only, where it looked like red bull were at least equal fastest if not fastest. It is the first time in months that red bull have had the fastest car in race conditions - there was no dropoff in quali-> race performance which had become the norm for the year.

Mclaren also wasn't amazing in the COTA sprint, Verstappen kept Norris at bay and even extended at the end, Norris fell to Sainz and had to hold on vs Charles.

Mclaren is a team that always come back stronger late in the stints, the longer the stints the better and harder tires are better.
Both races at COTA and Mexico showed this pattern, not so great early in a medium stint, pick up the pace late... much stronger in a hard stint with no drop off.

[avantman]

Lando struggled with front graining in Sprint at COTA, which is very particular issue and deg pattern, often caused by wrong setup or less than optimal driving. Way to often we see a driver struggling with graining to much lesser extent than his teammate in identical car. With Lando we also saw that in Monza, whereas drop off the pace of Piastri (caused by graining) wasn't nearly as bad and rapid.

[FW17]

Gary Anderson: Red Bull's McLaren tyre water theory doesn't add up
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/red- ... -anderson/

He really makes it hard to believe that he is an engineer. That article comes as across as poorly educated or researched.

Gary Anderson a former mechanic who has no formal qualifications............

[FW17]

Damn! If this trick is so easy and makes the tires last so much better reducing thermal deg dramatically - legalize it for all of them for the sake of better racing! Make the cars far more draggier, increase natural slipstream effect, get rid of the DRS and we can start to enjoy the sport again. I mean not just on these rare wet track days or low deg circuits where drivers can actually push hard for most of the race.

Tyre tricks are nothing new and have seen large performance benefits, couple of instances

1. Ferrari's tyre special gas mixture that was center of spygate in 2007
2. Pirelli tyre being run in reverse direction (by fitting on opposite sides) in the early years which was stopped in 2013 after failures, but surprisingly being done for quiet a few races without safety concerns. I remember when 2005 when Michelin tyre failed almost immediately on Alex Wurz car at Paul Ricard when it was fitted accidently on the opposite side.

[Vanja #66]

Gary Anderson a former mechanic who has no formal qualifications............

Still got to be Chief Engineer and TD and got an honorary PhD some 10 years ago, I think

[Sergej]

Sorry if this has already been discussed, but can someone explain how this trick would go unnoticed ? I get that it may be difficult to spot traces of water post-race inside the tyres, but how can a team inflate water without getting caught by Pirelli technicians ? aren't tyres inflated under Pirelli supervision ?

[organic]

Formu1a Uno reports that red bull are not the only team that suspect McLaren did this

The latest case concerns McLaren's use of Pirelli compounds, a suspicion fueled and pushed by Red Bull but which has also found allies in other teams.

some teams strongly suspect that in Woking they had put water inside the tire via the inflation valve

Also the amounts in question are less than 10ml, not large quantities that would affect the unsprung mass considerably as speculated here

According to what Formu1a.uno learned in the last few hours, we are talking about milliliters , therefore very small quantities of water, considering that a single ml would allow a decrease of a few degrees in the temperature at the heart of the tire.

Recommend reading the full article

https://formu1a.uno/it/acqua-nelle-gomm ... -ha-prove/

Formu1a Uno going into this depth on the subject suggests to me that Ferrari believe that this idea holds some water

[doji desu]

Must be something to it, all the tyres were very wet last race.

[gandharva]

The first thing I'd do here is to replace water with even better medium. I wonder how harsh penalties should be if this gets caught... but FIA is a toothless tiger these days.

[organic]

The first thing I'd do here is to replace water with even better medium. I wonder how harsh penalties should be if this gets caught... but FIA is a toothless tiger these days.

Water is a very good medium. Very high latent heat of evaporation, under pressures used in pirellis tyres the bp of water is only just above the operating window of pirelli tyres, and its presence if discovered can be more easily hand waved away than any other more exotic/specific substance

[gandharva]

I think that a good chemist could easily find potential for improvement here. The trick itself seems to be so easy to implement that you can easily throw a few resources on it to pick up the one or other low hanging fruit.