Thoughts on 2012 tyres?

[Jersey Tom]

Hello,

I have had a random, but interesting thought on the Pirelli tyres this season.

Reading an article on ESPN F1 (http://en.espnf1.com/mclaren/motorsport ... 78955.html), I am wondering...

Could Pirelli deliberately be making some tyres last longer than others, and/or some tyres better than others? These "better" tyres could just be randomly placed into the batch and it's a complete lottery who gets them.

I am not saying it's a "fix"... but could this be Bernie's way of making F1 more interesting?

No. Let's not be ridiculous.

[Nando]

Yea i think Pirelli gives out a certain amount of tires to the teams, half of the tires with the other driver´s name on them.

So if it´s indeed a conspiracy then it must be engineered from the factory.
It would actually be possible to do theoretically but also in extreme secrecy.

However i think analyzing the races so far i think there´s not much of a theory to begin with.

[elf341]

he's in a car that is believed to be quite consistent and in a team where they seem to have the best understanding of the tyre and the effects of setup on tyres

I actually think that the Lotus team "lucked" into a car that happened to work well with the Tyres. After all, they were very impressive from even the start of winter testing, having designed their car without knowledge of the tyres and one might expect that just down to sheer randomness one team would be that much closer to having a good base setup for the tyres than the other teams.
The fact that the Lotus, while fast, cannot seem to compete to the ragged edge (bar, perhaps, Bahrain) with whatever other team has managed to win the Pirelli tyre-switch-on lottery, indicates to me that the car's luck with the tyres flatters the car, just as luck might be seen to flatter the Sauber, or the Williams for that matter. From Lotus' perspectives, they probably do "understand" the tyres, that is - they have not had to worry so much about them, but I would wager that the Lotus engineers would have no better idea of how to alter the Merc to broaden their window than the Merc engineers do.

[marcush.]

I have to admit that all experience I have gained using Pirelli tyres in racing is fully correlating to what we see this year in Formula 1.
Including mandatory cambers ,cold pressures ,lack of reliable information ,tyres getting switched on and off with no apparent reason and some guy running away from the field at a insane rate .
True to it I reckoned not to have enough information and simulatiopn capacity to get on top of this but it was at times truely frustrating to know that things that worked yesterday ,suddenly had no worth at all...
Ok it was Ferrari Challenge ,but it made you wonder why some guys had enormous speed at times ..and in certain circumstances we had this speed as well but we could not reproduce this on all tracks somehow....
Maybe it really is something to do with the grippy layer on top and the support rubber below which react maybe a bit different under certain circumstances

[jason.parker.86]

Yea i think Pirelli gives out a certain amount of tires to the teams, half of the tires with the other driver´s name on them.

So if it´s indeed a conspiracy then it must be engineered from the factory.
It would actually be possible to do theoretically but also in extreme secrecy.

However i think analyzing the races so far i think there´s not much of a theory to begin with.

Well what if the rubber compound varied so much as they come off each mould, meaning not one would be identical in terms of properties.

[Speedster]

he's in a car that is believed to be quite consistent and in a team where they seem to have the best understanding of the tyre and the effects of setup on tyres

I actually think that the Lotus team "lucked" into a car that happened to work well with the Tyres. After all, they were very impressive from even the start of winter testing, having designed their car without knowledge of the tyres and one might expect that just down to sheer randomness one team would be that much closer to having a good base setup for the tyres than the other teams.
The fact that the Lotus, while fast, cannot seem to compete to the ragged edge (bar, perhaps, Bahrain) with whatever other team has managed to win the Pirelli tyre-switch-on lottery, indicates to me that the car's luck with the tyres flatters the car, just as luck might be seen to flatter the Sauber, or the Williams for that matter. From Lotus' perspectives, they probably do "understand" the tyres, that is - they have not had to worry so much about them, but I would wager that the Lotus engineers would have no better idea of how to alter the Merc to broaden their window than the Merc engineers do.

Could well be. The fact is, their car also looks quick in most races, also in qualifying, and I doubt that is solely due to being kind on tyres. It means or could mean that there is a range in which you can make the tyres work while still going fast. After all, the big complaint is that racers cannot go as fast as their car can go anymore, but Kimi and Grosjean (who was even faster) were going flat out for the last 15-20 laps of the Spain GP. Whether it's lucky or due to understanding, I don't know, but it at least proves that most teams can go faster yet without sacrificing anything else.

[Nando]

Well what if the rubber compound varied so much as they come off each mould, meaning not one would be identical in terms of properties.

I´m pretty sure it´s the same rubber mixture for one type of compound.

Could anyone here tell me who won the first 5 races in 2010?

[Speedster]

Yea i think Pirelli gives out a certain amount of tires to the teams, half of the tires with the other driver´s name on them.

So if it´s indeed a conspiracy then it must be engineered from the factory.
It would actually be possible to do theoretically but also in extreme secrecy.

However i think analyzing the races so far i think there´s not much of a theory to begin with.

Well what if the rubber compound varied so much as they come off each mould, meaning not one would be identical in terms of properties.

One of the chief guys from Williams, I forgot who it was exactly, discarded this theory. The tyres are hard to understand, but consistent in their structure.

[marcush.]

well ,you can produce ,for example two samples of rubber with exactly the same shore hardness but completely different hysteresis..so the question is what is it the teams are comparing for consistency .diameter width ,spring rate ,runout lateral or axial --I don´t think you can with limited understanding state the tyres are all the same and consistent when you don´t know what to look for .

I have had the feeling some teams would work the tyres overnight to get them last longer or more consistent ,but as the pendulum goes either direction it is not one team does know it all and others have to catch up

[ubrben]

he's in a car that is believed to be quite consistent and in a team where they seem to have the best understanding of the tyre and the effects of setup on tyres

I actually think that the Lotus team "lucked" into a car that happened to work well with the Tyres. After all, they were very impressive from even the start of winter testing, having designed their car without knowledge of the tyres and one might expect that just down to sheer randomness one team would be that much closer to having a good base setup for the tyres than the other teams.
The fact that the Lotus, while fast, cannot seem to compete to the ragged edge (bar, perhaps, Bahrain) with whatever other team has managed to win the Pirelli tyre-switch-on lottery, indicates to me that the car's luck with the tyres flatters the car, just as luck might be seen to flatter the Sauber, or the Williams for that matter. From Lotus' perspectives, they probably do "understand" the tyres, that is - they have not had to worry so much about them, but I would wager that the Lotus engineers would have no better idea of how to alter the Merc to broaden their window than the Merc engineers do.

That's a fairly torturous argument.

I think it's probably a lot simpler. Traditionally the ranking in F1 has basically been who's got the best downforce level, and on some tracks like Spa and Monza, who's got the best downforce level for a given level of drag. This year the tyres degrade a lot more meaning that it's easier to hurt them regardless of the downforce level of the car.

In fact I suspect that certain teams like Red Bull have pursued aero gains regardless of how aggressively they made the the work because the Bridgestone's could take it. In addition Red Bull had the best EBD, which is now banned, and was a big part of them setting pole all the time. It's a lot harder regardless of your car to do well if you don't start at the front.

F1 has finally become more than just phd aero guys having a pissing contest. The fact that it took this much tyre degradation to do it is probably not ideal. A better solution would be further cuts to aero regs and a tyre somewhere between a hard Pirelli and a soft Bridgestone.

Ben

[siskue2005]

Could Pirelli deliberately be making some tyres last longer than others, and/or some tyres better than others? These "better" tyres could just be randomly placed into the batch and it's a complete lottery who gets them.

What are the chances Maldonado picked the right tires in pretty much every single session?

The tyre set of 5 hards and 5 sorts per driver, comes from a single batch

5 softs and 5 hards comes as a set and it is allocated to a driver at Friday

It's not as if every drive picks up a tyre each and every session

The conspiracy theory is plausible, coz Pirelli can place that good batches in one set and it goes to random driver....or worse it could be given to selected team/driver

The recent comments from Witmarsh that," Lewis deserves the win at Monaco" had me wondering
Are they secretly asking for the better tyre for Lewis at Monaco?

[Nando]

Or it´s simply Mclaren who has consistently raped him of wins.

Thus feel that now is the time he finally gets his win he deserves. i think even the haters would agree on that one.

[mx_tifoso]

FYI: the conspiracy thread has been merged into the this one. And please be rational .

[Shrieker]

Re: Tyre conspiracy theory
There's more than enough to cause suspicion, but unless some one from the inside comes out with info (as in crash gate) we'll never know for sure. Just like 9/11.

[strad]

And please be rational

I'm beginning to think they can't. Some of these theories are outlandish.
There is no conspiracy, just a crap plan by the FIA to artificially give us some semblance of racing.