Thoughts on 2012 tyres?

[jamsbong]

The way I see the 4 races so far has been the tires dominating the fate of race outcomes. Figuring out the tires has been a lot of gamble and luck. I do enjoy the high level of complexity in F1 where you have DRS/KERS, strategy, setups, aero, etcs. However, the tires are diminishing all the other complexities including diminishing drivers skills.

After reading James Allen's posts and the comments from readers, I think tire management does show the driver skills. But I don't want to just watch the race where drivers drives like a snail in order to nurse the tires home. Just have a look at today's laptimes. It is slower than ever before, how can we allow F1 to continue to slow down?

I think Pirelli are doing too much. They should have provide a real grippy tires to allow fast laptimes, have a cliff and that's it. The artificial degradation, overheating, not switching on tires should be thrown out of the window. Imagine if you have these tires on your road car, there will be lots of sad faces with unpredictable skidding, crashes and even deaths.

[ubrben]

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

Thank you

Ben

[raymondu999]

It's a tough thing to do I think. In an era of no refueling, you're stuck on a singular axis. On one end you have tyres that respond well to being "managed," and on the other end you have tyres that don't respond well to being "managed."

If you have tyres that DO respond to being managed then it would favor the Button/Di Resta types who are smooth operators. On the other hand, a tyre that doesn't respond well to being managed would be determined just about solely by mileage, which would favor the more gung-ho Hamilton/Schumacher type.

Depending on what you value in a driver, you will favor one end or the other, or somewhere in between.

[mzivtins]

If you have tyres that DO respond to being managed then it would favor the Button/Di Resta types who are smooth operators. On the other hand, a tyre that doesn't respond well to being managed would be determined just about solely by mileage, which would favor the more gung-ho Hamilton/Schumacher type.

I think very good inteded wear would suit both styles perfectly?

You could argue whilst button could make tyres last 5 laps longer than Hamilton, would Hamilton be quicker over the same number of laps?

What we seem to be seeing at the moment is both driving styles being punished.

I would like to see softs lasting 20 laps, of those 15 of 100% on the limit pushing.

For a more Hamilton-esque style you could argue that may actually be 16 laps of mileage with 11-12 of those being optimum, but if that makes him much quicker at least he still has more laps of the fast stuff rather than both types of style finding they have no place/hope/fight against failing tyres.

Do you think 2011 was better for tyres? i really thought pirelli had gone a step forward, a lot of teams seemed to say the degredation was much less steep in testing, which really made me happy that we could be seeing good useable tyres for a larger portion of its lifespan.

To be honest, what the hell can Pirelli do without a 2012 test car... i know the reasons why teams would not see it as fair (you'd have tyres developed around your chassis over the other... unfair advantage) but still.. how can you have a good product with such a different test bed.PITA!!!

[munks]

Maybe the problem is the cliff that the Pirellis fall off of. Once the tires reach a certain amount of degradation, the next lap is suddenly 1 or 2 seconds off the pace rather than what we are accustomed to in the history of motorsport: a gradual reduction in performance every lap. I don't know too much about compounding but it's like the Pirellis run out of resin or some other important additive. It may not be as instantaneous or dangerous as wearing down to the cords, but it seems to reduce grip very quickly in a small window of time.

[Nando]

Hembery: Pirelli open to change tyre philosophy if Formula 1 teams want it

We were asked to come up with a certain approach, and that was agreed with teams," Hembery said. "The leader for the teams' views was actually Ross [Brawn], and he told us that Canada 2010 was the model they wanted and that is what we worked on.

"What do we want? One car to disappear into the distance? The public turned away from the sport when that happened, so there was a very clear decision made by the sport to address the racing.

I rest my case.

[strad]

What I've been saying all along.
We got what we asked for.
I'm certain Pirelli could produce an excellent traction and life tire if that was what they were asked to do.

[Tim.Wright]

I think a lot of complaining about the tyres is because there is nothing else to complain about. If the biggest problem in the sport now is a few marbles on the track, then I think we are pretty well off.

After sitting through over 10 years of boring formula 1, Im just glad things are interesting again.

Tim

[strad]

Yeah but falsely degrading tires isn't the answer

[ubrben]

Yeah but falsely degrading tires isn't the answer

What is the answer?

Ben

[ubrben]

Hembery: Pirelli open to change tyre philosophy if Formula 1 teams want it

We were asked to come up with a certain approach, and that was agreed with teams," Hembery said. "The leader for the teams' views was actually Ross [Brawn], and he told us that Canada 2010 was the model they wanted and that is what we worked on.

"What do we want? One car to disappear into the distance? The public turned away from the sport when that happened, so there was a very clear decision made by the sport to address the racing.

I rest my case.

So you believe everything you read in the press as gospel truth?

Name me a politician you don't like, I'll find a statement they've made to the press and you'd rip it to pieces.

PR is rarely factual. Or it's factual in a facile sense that's not really useful for a technical discussion.

Ben

[xpensive]

Yeah but falsely degrading tires isn't the answer

What is the answer?

Ben

This entire quasi-debate over tires, which incidentally are equal to all, reminds me of Dan Gurney, or was it AJ Foyt,
at the 1967 Le Mans when some drivers were complaining about the speed hitting 190 mph on the Mulsanne;

"If you think it's dangerous, perhaps you're driving too fast?"

[strad]

Good point X
.
As to my answer? I have offered a couple.
I think this whole marbles/clag offline thing is a problem in every series I watch.
Did you watch the Aussie V8s?
NASCAR?
ALL the series over the years have relied on softer and stickier tires to bring down laps times and improve the cars handling performance and like all things good it has been pushed too far. If a little's good a lot must be that much better.
I think that we should take a step back to a time when a driver had to manage his tires. But not like this. You want strategy? Fine have two compounds. One that will need a stop for change and if ya beat them to death two stops and the other that with a style like say Jensons, you can just make it on one set, but you'll be dicing with the devil at the end.
No clag and the ability to go offline without driving on ball bearings.

[bhall]

What is the answer?

Ben

Genuine performance differentiation.

The Pirelli-putty tires and DRS are nothing but band-aids employed by those who don't want to face the realities of F1. The fact of the matter is that the regulations are now so tight that the cars are all pretty much the same, and equal cars have a real hard time passing one another on-track.

I think it's hard for F1 to admit that all of the measures taken in the name of cost-cutting are strangling the sport to death. Restrictions, homologations, standardized components, these are all enemies of genuine performance differentiation, which is also expensive, and apparently it's more important to keep the sport cheap for the likes of HRT and Marussia than it is to keep the sport connected to its roots.

EDIT: I sometimes make odd syntax errors.

[xpensive]

In order to give that performance differentiation, I believe that the technical regulations must be loosened up,
ditching the spec-tyre might be a good beginning?