How can teams resolve tyre issues?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Trackings fine mate, could be they forgot to check the pressures!

Seriously though what can be done that can help? Shifting of ballast?
I think a redesign isnt as complex or expensive as people think. The people who are employed to do this get paid anyway, so pay them to correct their mess.
Or am I missing somthing here?

[DaveW]

It is truly amazing to me, that last's year double title team, had little to none of the problems with tires and now tires are to blame? Have tires changed that much? Seems not for RB, Mclaren, or even Ferrari....

Apologies, but I recall that JB (in particular) struggled after the 7th race in 2009, usually complaining of tyre issues. I have heard it suggested that tyres changed in some way at that point.... Tyres are certainly different for 2010, but probably not dramatically so.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

It is truly amazing to me, that last's year double title team, had little to none of the problems with tires and now tires are to blame? Have tires changed that much? Seems not for RB, Mclaren, or even Ferrari....

Apologies, but I recall that JB (in particular) struggled after the 7th race in 2009, usually complaining of tyre issues. I have heard it suggested that tyres changed in some way at that point.... Tyres are certainly different for 2010, but probably not dramatically so.

Tyres are indeed different this year. The front tyres are narrower than last year, hence why weight distribution was so pivotal for this year.
And Brawn did indeed struggle with tyres last year particularly in the second half of the season.

[Jersey Tom]

Bear in mind.. again.. even the "good" drivers don't always know what they're talking about.

I dunno. I think it's silly for us to say it's one thing or it's another. It's silly even for a team to say they're having more problems with component X than a competitor. In fact, I can say that from experience.

More and more though.. if these teams really DO have this much trouble with the tires.. must mean they don't have good data on them.

[Belatti]

and to be honest I'm not very impressed with Bridgestone's tire testing rig (if you want to nerd out on it, you can read about it here http://www.mts.com/downloads/Get_into_the_groove.pdf).

I dont follow you here, JT. The rig seems to be pretty good. What the problem with it?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Bear in mind.. again.. even the "good" drivers don't always know what they're talking about.

I dunno. I think it's silly for us to say it's one thing or it's another. It's silly even for a team to say they're having more problems with component X than a competitor. In fact, I can say that from experience.

More and more though.. if these teams really DO have this much trouble with the tires.. must mean they don't have good data on them.

JT Perhaps the teams have the data, yet cannot overcome the issues?

I dont think for one minute that in 9 races in, Mercedes(teams struggling with tyres) dont have good data on tyres. The issue for me here, is once the problem is found, what can be done?

I spoke to a friend from Prodrive not so long ago(soldier ant)during a track day, and he told me that tyres can never be fully nailed. As its a bit of a moving target regards degredation, grip and heat issues(too much/too little) and what the tyre does when it overheats etc.

But he did go mention that if a car is designed by understanding these three factors, you will have a car that will use its tyres best.

And some teams namely Red Bull and Mclaren have stolen a march on the rest in this area. My question remains though, how can the teams that are suffering, resolve their issues?

[speedsense]

It is truly amazing to me, that last's year double title team, had little to none of the problems with tires and now tires are to blame? Have tires changed that much? Seems not for RB, Mclaren, or even Ferrari....

Apologies, but I recall that JB (in particular) struggled after the 7th race in 2009, usually complaining of tyre issues. I have heard it suggested that tyres changed in some way at that point.... Tyres are certainly different for 2010, but probably not dramatically so.

Tyres are indeed different this year. The front tyres are narrower than last year, hence why weight distribution was so pivotal for this year.
And Brawn did indeed struggle with tyres last year particularly in the second half of the season.

Not a difference that wasn't know about since last year (June of last year?)
It's the same for everybody.....
Weight distribution can be changed without changing the chassis...
If Brawn struggled with tires last year, then they struggled less than everybody else....or they wouldn't have won.
They have changed chassis since then, and the same problem is occurring?...
so maybe it's not the chassis....

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Please read the posts above your own reference those questions and statements.

Brawns car advantage was such that it masked the tyre issues until the others caught up. And yes they changed chassis, but its still the same team behind the W01 and so far as Im aware they are still using the same tech as they did when designing the BGP001.
Weight distribution has already been changed this year, and has had very little impact.
As for it being the same for everyone, thats only true of the tyre, not of tyre use which is what this thread is all about.

[marcush.]

considering it is strictly forbidden to undertake any tiretesting wich is not bound to actually running the car on track,plus the restrictons on car testing itself,plus Bridgestone not really supplying all the data the teams would need to come up with a reliable tire model,we are left with Merc is citing tires as their big issue ,sauber as well ..other teams do not make a big fuzz around this..but probably have the same
issues when looking at their postqualy comments..8sudeen lack of grip in qualy...not something we did never hear ..)
I think it is mandatory to operate the cars during free practise at different parts of their adjustment window extremely enough to gather data at same time but for different settings to get more of an idea where you should be to make the thing work.
Adjust as much as possible ,as both drivers will not need the seat time to adjust themselves.only this way you can look up if your predictions even is somewhat close
to reality.As soon as the sim does not correlate .you need to find out why and how to adjust your model ...but maybe it is far more comolicated as putting in factors as it may be at some points of the map the correlation is spot on.
What bothers me is Merc did a lot of low fuel running in the winter ,as did Sauber..
but these seem to be the ones with issues..

btw..the teams must have some tyres to stick to their cars when not on race weekends ....so is this a specification unraced or how to avoid teams from taking these tyres to test ?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

So in a nutshell Marcush, what you are saying is Mercedes is using the tyres as an excuse?

[marcush.]

Admittedly I have to say I´m frustrated and a bit confused by their development or lack of it since winter testing.
We are speculating since the very first tests about it ...but looking at their current performance these 400+ experts have not been able to make a shoe out of their amassed information since the first testing.
I remember to have posted a long time ago about the possible weight shift when doing a 2 inch front wheels forward job and back then I concluded it just cannot be enough
of a change to expect a almost 1 second deficit in qualy to disappear...
But ,officially it was THE reason for them not performing.
They revised their airbox...but still their speed on straights is pathetic.They have an f-duct for quite a while but it seems not the big step either.They have low exhaust ...but burn their underwear...
I got the feeling the things they are doing is all firefighting and not really a serious well measured effort...so more like 1 step forward and two half steps back..

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

The F-duct is working Marcush. Not as well as Mclarens certainly, but it works.
They are now about 7kmh down whereas before it was 12-14kmh.
As for the Wheel base change, it leads me to believe the whole chassis was designed to use its tyres in a specific way.
A 2inch adjustment will have an effect, maybe not a positive one.

What difference will geometery adjustments have?
What difference will camber adjustmentsd have?
What will happen if the mass bias is moved further rearward?
What differnce can hard or soft suspension setting have?
Slip angle on acceleration?

Im seeing alot of tyre "shimmy" in the slow mo's on the Ferrari and Mercedes compared to the Red Bulls and Mclarens. This could be a factor.

[Richard]

It does seem the tyres are being used as an excuse by a team that also talked of struggling to get them to the right temperature last year.

All the teams got the same data fro Bridgestone, some made it work, others didn't. isn't that the point of the competition? What next, fixed gear ratios?

Personally, I think F1 should have more variables and hard to predict factors. That's where good engineering talent can find fertile ground.

[mep]

Just blaming the tires is to simple. Especially when this is the only part every team has in common. They all could use a different tire and RedBull would still be the best car.

The F-duct is working Marcush. Not as well as Mclarens certainly, but it works.

What kind of f-duct they even have? I still can't see anything on their car. Can you please show me some pictures, links of their system?
It must be very different to all the other teams.

A 2inch adjustment will have an effect, maybe not a positive one.

What difference will geometery adjustments have?
What difference will camber adjustmentsd have?
What will happen if the mass bias is moved further rearward?
What difference can hard or soft suspension setting have?
Slip angle on acceleration?

All this things can be adjusted quite easily. If they still haven't found the proper adjustments then they should look for men’s who are more talented with it.
As well as with their race strategies, the BS they showed us the last two races shameful.

I can imagine the problem they have is they run out of money last year when they had to develop the 2010 car. 2009 they focused on the current car which was developed with the Honda money from 2008. They even had to sack many of their employees. The money from Mercedes came after the 2009 season way to late to develop a proper car. Now they have to live with it.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

mep Look on the Mercedes W01 thread for pictures of their F-duct.
It works. Just not as well as Mclarens.

so I can surmise then that after 3 days, tyres are indeed a black art with no real way of nailing it down to a specific thing.