Thoughts on 2012 tyres?

[Lycoming]

There is no reason why they cannot produce a tyre that lasts a grand prix distance or more with acceptable degredation. Hembery himself has stated that to do so would be easier than to produce a tyre that will result in 2-3 stops at each race.

Would they be able to beat Micheln/Bridgestone? Maybe. Not immediately, they have years of experience and tyre data. But there is no reason at all why they could not be competitive with them, given a few years.

[Nando]

No haven´t you heard? we have a genius here taking numbers from endurance racing and applies it to everything.
If the world only was that simple...

And still thinks the reason the tires are like this is because this is the best Pirelli can do in terms of grip/degradation.

I´m out.

[strad]

Yeah...Pirelli has the dumbest engineers in the tire industry and have no idea what they are doing..They are lucky their tires aren't killin g people every day.

[ubrben]

No haven´t you heard? we have a genius here taking numbers from endurance racing and applies it to everything.
If the world only was that simple...

And still thinks the reason the tires are like this is because this is the best Pirelli can do in terms of grip/degradation.

I´m out.

I'm not a genius, I just have some data and the knowledge from the day job that allows me to reasonably believe that it is relevant to compare the two scenarios.

You have every right to disagree with my, but you'd have more credibility if your arguments were more sophisticated than "I can't possibly believe Pirelli aren't awesome" hardly an intellectual tour de force... Your argument contains no facts whatsoever, just a lot of hand-waving.

Strad: I don't think Pirelli's engineers are dumb. I believe their bosses have a different view of the tyre business than the bosses of Michelin Competition and Bridgestone did when they were in F1.

Ben

[WilO]

I'm sorry gentlemen, and ubrben certainly doesn't need me to defend him, but...I take exception to the manner in which you respond to his posts. He's actually a very bright guy, and has dedicated himself to being a motorsport engineer.
I can recall when Ben first appeared on the Atlasf1 forum, I think he was working for a helicopter manufacturer, he'd already coded his own tire model in MATLAB, and was clearly a bright and motivated young man.
Taking liberties with the content of his posts to suit your own (misguided) point of view is wrong. He's trying to give you an informed viewpoint, it's worth learning from.

Wil

[jamsbong]

Michael Schumacher highlighted that the tires are terrible and he was forced to drive the car at 50% of its capability and try and survived to the finish line. He is trying to say that there is a lot more a driver/he can do if the tires weren't such a let down.
The way to get competitive in the last few race has been getting the tires more right than other teams. This means the guys who set it up/driver feedback and the limits of the suspension/car design and the strategists.

Schumacher is saying that he has been a sitting duck because the tires let him down. Do you agree?
Is there any other way to improve the show with lots of overtaking while keeping driver's honour and talent in check? Ecclestone suggest artificial rain, I personally think that is a worthy idea to consider. But instead of leaving the "rain button" to one person like Charlie Whiting, it should be a voting system. If >50% of the drivers recon the track should changed the condition then there will be rain at random during the race. This will allow weaker teams like Caterham to gamble for points. Also allow unlucky top drivers like e.g. if Button had an unfortunate puncture and need to weave through the crowd to back in the podium hunt.

I think audience agree that the Rain Canadian race was the best. During the DRS-free part of the race, there was so much drama, real overtakings and crashings. To me that is the real deal! That is a real show. That is what I want and if artificial rain is what it takes, then so be it.

[PlatinumZealot]

I think the tyres should be made like the bridgestone softs. They degrade but are tough enough to drive at max limits.

[raymondu999]

I don't think it shadows driver talent. Rather it shows ANOTHER talent. It's just which talent you value more, really. Outright speed, or tyre management. Of course the holy grail for this current formula is tyre management, wedded with speed - to get the most out of stints.

[Websta]

The Canadian race last year was very exciting, but to me F1 is racing like what we saw between Hamilton and Webber in Korea, not drivers tip toeing around and lapping as slow as touring cars. Changeable conditions are what made Canada more exciting, and that is what artificial rain would achieve I suppose, but then again changeable conditions are only exciting if there is a degree of strategy involved. There is no way for the teams to predict when this artificial rain will begin, so it will just involve the entire field pitting as soon as possible. It would be so unfair as it could essentially just gift a race win to someone who happened to be near the pits when it began to rain, and cost the leaders of the race dearly. This idea is also so artificial that it would only belong on a game show.

I think the only way this could possibly work if they made it "rain" before the race began, but it is still so horribly contrived and artificial.

F1 cannot have it's cake and eat it too. They can either be the fastest racing series in the world, or they can get rid of the downforce and make the cars twitchy and unpredictable, i.e. have permanent wet weather handling characteristics. You can't have the speed and still have an overtaking fiesta which is what these stupid tyres and rain ideas are trying to achieve.

If they want cars following each other more closely in corners, and by extension more overtaking, lets see some ground effect (i think that is less sensitive to airflow?) and some fan cars.

[Websta]

Tyre management isn't what gets the drivers to F1, their outright pace is. It doesn't make sense to ask them to change their driving style drastically if that's the reason they are in F1 in the first place.

[raymondu999]

Changeable conditions are what made Canada more exciting

I beg to differ. You could also get excitement from wet weather, even if it didn't dry out.

If they want cars following each other more closely in corners, and by extension more overtaking, lets see some ground effect (i think that is less sensitive to airflow?) and some fan cars.

I don't know about fan cars, but I'm all for ground effect to make a return.

[Mashed]

Not sure why we are comparing Pirelli's to Bridgestone's when each respected supplier were in F1 at different time periods. The fact is, Pirelli were asked to produce tires like we currently have and have never had the chance to do otherwise since they came back to F1. So anyone claiming they don't have the potential to develop a Bridgestone-spec F1 tire or better is guessing at best at this point.

[Websta]

Changeable conditions are what made Canada more exciting

I beg to differ. You could also get excitement from wet weather, even if it didn't dry out.

I don't really see full wet races as much more exciting than a dry race though - I recently re-watched China 2009 and it wasn't anymore exciting than a standard dry race IMO. Then again, there are races like Japan 2007 which are absolutely thrilling.

[Pierce89]

To say the tires mask driver talent is ridiculous. If they masked talent, Massa would beat Fernando more than 2 or 3 times a year

What Micheal was really saying was: "This F1 lark is a lot tougher when I have to use the same tires as everyone else, instead of having custom tires built to my own personal specs"

[Raptor22]

the current Pirelli is not a racing tyre,its an endurance tyre thats artificially creating a show. Thats BS