Thoughts on 2012 tyres?

[bhall]

I don't do the point-by-point rebuttal thing anymore. They tend to move in ever-widening circles as one person says, "It's black," while the other person says, "It's white."

I will say, however, that the tires are designed as wild cards. This has been admitted up and down the pit lane.

"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." ~ Paul Hembery

[myurr]

I don't do the point-by-point rebuttal thing anymore. They tend to move in ever-widening circles.

I will say, however, that the tires are designed as wild cards. This has been admitted up and down the pit lane.

"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." ~ Paul Hembery

Wildcard tends to means random (there are several definitions). These tyres don't have random performance. Can you supply any credible quotes that say that the tyres are deliberately either random in their performance or wild cards? I'm not talking about throw away driver comments about it seeming to be random, you specifically claim that it has been admitted up and down the pit lane that they are designed to be wild cards.

The quote from Ross Brawn refers to the degradation of the tyres in Canada 2010. Bridgestone got the tyre allocation wrong for that race which resulted in tyres with a narrow operating window and high degradation. This produced one of the best races of that year.

The Bridgestone tyres weren't random in their performance they just had poor life and durability - the exact traits Pirelli were asked to replicate, and the exact traits they have supplied. And the racing this year has been better for it, just like Canada 2010.

[bhall]

I also don't tend to allow others to dictate the well from which they're willing to receive answers. It points to a closed-mindedness that's rarely overcome. And seeing a few of my own thoughts repeated as if I never said them doesn't help matters, either.

Suffice it to say, some people enjoy Pirelli racing, others, such as myself, don't.

I think we should listen to the drivers, though. Their opinions aren't "throwaway." They're the only people on Earth who have actually felt the effects of these tires. If their feedback is good enough for the teams who spend millions to employ them and millions more to develop the cars they drive, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's probably not a bad idea to put stock in what they have to say on the subject.

Cheers.

[myurr]

I also don't tend to allow others to dictate the well from which they're willing to receive answers. It points to a closed-mindedness that's rarely overcome.

But you yourself placed the restriction by stating that "This has been admitted up and down the pit lane." Where, by whom? Your one quote doesn't actually say what you state it says.

Suffice it to say, some people enjoy Pirelli racing, others, such as myself, don't.

And that is fair enough, but state it as personal opinion rather than pollute numerous threads (I know it's not just you) with comments about Pirelotteri and statements as to it being fact that it's artificial without being able to back it up.

You don't like it and I do - both are just opinions.

I think we should listen to the drivers, though. Their opinions aren't "throwaway." They're the only people on Earth who have actually felt the effects of these tires. If their feedback is good enough for the teams who spend millions to employ them and millions more to develop the cars they drive, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's probably not a bad idea to put stock in what they have to say on the subject.

Cheers.

They're also a biased source though as they are competing against the other drivers. Take Vettel for example, last year he dominates F1 and this year his performances are all over the place and he is struggling to out qualify his team mate. Is he going to state that he's not as adaptable to the new tyres as some of his contemporaries or is he going to state that it's all random luck and the reason he's not winning every race is just down to bad luck? Are last years championship winning team going to accept that their car isn't as good as some of the others with these new rules and build a better car, or are they going to publicly bitch about the randomness of it all and try to whinge until the rules are changed back in their favour.

I've singled those specific examples out but in any competitive sport you'll always, to a degree, find those who are doing as well as their expectations praising the rules and those who are not doing as well as they'd like will be criticising something or other. That's just human nature.

[siskue2005]

They're also a biased source though as they are competing against the other drivers.

Ok, so we all should believe you instead?

[myurr]

Ok, so we all should believe you instead?

Where did I say that? You should all make your own minds up but where you want to discuss in a public forum you should be prepared to back what you say up with evidence.

I agree with you though that I should have said that drivers are a biased source in my opinion. But let us not forget that this was in response to bhallg2k's assertion that the tyres are designed to be 'wild cards', as in have random performance to shake up the grid, and that this was widely 'admitted up and down the pit lane'. In this context a couple of drivers who aren't performing to expectations shouldn't, in my opinion, be perceived as reliable sources of information and nor do they state that the tyres are random by design or constitute it being admitted up and down the pit lane.

Unlike many on this forum I'm happy to be proven wrong, I just ask for compelling evidence to be presented and not opinion.

[siskue2005]

Drivers are not biased
If they are, why didnt they ALL do the same last year....when Vettel was the only one winning?

Top drivers and some experts like Brundle all said the same
so i dont think they are ALL biased

The biased guy could probably be Paul Hembery, he surely has an agenda....what he talks in complete BS all the time

And i do believe IMHO that the tyres are just wild card, who ever gets the best tyres wins, and IMHO they are controlled by someone up there or it could just be lottery

How do you explain a mid field car to suddenly get pole and win a race and that too in a track where majority of the races are won only by aerodynamically best car year after year!?

You might argue that only best drivers could get the tyres working, but how do you explain the supposedly best driver struggles just after he won a race and be like 40 sec behind in the next race?
That doesnt happen if the tyres were consistant.

[hollus]

I don't do the point-by-point rebuttal thing anymore. They tend to move in ever-widening circles as one person says, "It's black," while the other person says, "It's white."

Bravo! Hats off to that. But why I actually cited it is to use your own words: I won't listen to "the racing has been dull" anymore. Come on everyone, the last 5 years, including this one, have produced the best F1-shows that I remember and the most dramatic season finales that I remember. Those virtually identical cars are not doing that badly on the show side.

Back to the tyres. So these Pirellis are designed on purpose with a very small operating window? So what! It means that the design targets for the cars have moved from:
a) designing a car producing extreme performance in a very narrow set-up window (for god downforce's sake) relying on a wide tyre performance window, to
b) designing a car that stays in the narrow window where the tyres produce extreme performance by means of having a wide car set-up window.

If we gave the teams back all the tracks used in F1 in the 50's, they would quickly redesign their cars for low drag instead of high downforce. Let them now re-design for setup flexibility!

Alnoso (exhausts permitting), Hamilton (pit stops permitting), Raikkonen, Grosjean (first lap crashes permitting) and maybe Perez seem to find the Pirellis sweet spot all the time, so the window cannot be THAT narrow...

[siskue2005]

There is no problem with narrow setup window
but the problem is that narrow window keeps swinging each and every race and each and every session
whenever a cloud passes by it randomly switches and slight drop in 2 degree temp would mean HRTs suddenly are at pace with RBR

Alonso/Ferrari got that sweet spot only in two races
Lewis struggled in Australia race, Malaysia race, Bahrain race....he gets it only at Quly, thats the same with Merc and Schumy.
and Lotus is the only team who has had any sort of consistency

[hardingfv32]

You might argue that only best drivers could get the tyres working, but how do you explain the supposedly best driver struggles just after he won a race and be like 40 sec behind in the next race?
That doesnt happen if the tyres were consistant.

The team made the wrong setup compromise for the race. I would say that the setup window is so narrow, factors out of the control of the teams once the setup has been chosen can put the setup outside the acceptable window.

I find it odd that more adjustments are not made during the pit stops. Maybe the cars lack adjustments because this setup issue is new to them this year.

Brian

[siskue2005]

You might argue that only best drivers could get the tyres working, but how do you explain the supposedly best driver struggles just after he won a race and be like 40 sec behind in the next race?
That doesnt happen if the tyres were consistant.

The team made the wrong setup compromise for the race. I would say that the setup window is so narrow, factors out of the control of the teams once the setup has been chosen can put the setup outside the acceptable window.

I find it odd that more adjustments are not made during the pit stops. Maybe the cars lack adjustments because this setup issue is new to them this year.

Brian

Again its not the narrow part which is so difficult, its the moving setup window....just like we saw at China Q3
The drivers and engineers are world class people who can easily hit a narrow setup window in atleast 5 races plus 1 test session!!
The fact that they still cant hit it consistently shows it is like trying to score on a moving goal post

[myurr]

Again its not the narrow part which is so difficult, its the moving setup window....just like we saw at China Q3
The drivers and engineers are world class people who can easily hit a narrow setup window in atleast 5 races plus 1 test session!!
The fact that they still cant hit it consistently shows it is like trying to score on a moving goal post

The moving setup window is difficult because it is narrow. It's always moved, this isn't anything new, it's just that this small movement is causing the car's setup to fall outside optimum for the tyre. Coupled to the degradation this is then having a large effect on pace and / or balance.

You also have to bear in mind that the field is a lot closer this year. A small variation in pace that would just have gone down as a team having a slightly off day last year can now be the difference between running at the front and struggling to break into the top 10.

[Shrieker]

I've said it before a couple of times and will say it again, excessive marbling with the pirellis is a terrible problem and they've done absolutely nothing to fix it. It hampers racing, we'd be seeing more wheel to wheel action if marbling was a lot less. If pirelli want to make the tyres degrade as much as they do now then fine, but just make it so without marbling...

[bhall]

Excessive marbling goes pretty much hand-in-hand with massive degradation. You can't really have one without the other.

EDIT: It was mentioned in the "Massa's future" thread that perhaps the standard weight distribution is yet another reason for his struggles, and it dawned on me that this rule is precisely why the tires are a wild card lottery. If that wasn't the case, teams would not have this major tool for perfecting the balance of a car rendered impotent by those in favor of "the show."

[myurr]

@bhallg2k - copied from the other thread as it probably makes more sense here:

Again you're placing the blame in the wrong quarter. The mandated weight distribution was agreed between the teams for last year and extended into this year by the teams! It has nothing to do with 'the show' and everything to do with the teams not wanting one car design or another to luck into a weight balance that proved optimal for the tyres and that the others wouldn't be able to copy until the following season.

I'd also like to add that it was apparently also for cost saving reasons: http://totalf1.com/full_story/view/3894 ... ntil_2013/