Michelin Coming Back?

[gato azul]

both belong to the same group in the meantime.

what some people may forget is, that the tyre companies where not "beating a path" to the FIA headquarter and asking to supply tyres for F1.
So while it is "easy" to harp onto Pirelli, who says that Avon (which to my knowledge was the only other company tendering for the deal under the conditions) would have done a better job.

[bhall]

Exactly. F1 can't just go out and draft a tire manufacturer into service. The politics involved pretty much mean the sport takes what it can get.

[Pup]

For me the only issue with the '05 regulations was the inability for the teams to change a damaged tire without penalty. I think they could have tweaked the rule a bit and allowed a single tire change during a normal pitstop. It wouldn't have been ideal having one new tire, but better than a flat spotted one surely - thinking of Kimi at the Nurburgring.

The problem for life in F1 without a tire competition is that the tire companies need something in return for supplying their tires. Either they get money, a lot, or they get mentioned on the broadcast, a lot. F1 is apparently too cheap to pay, so to get their name mentioned on the air every ten seconds, Bridgestone took the multiple compound approach, and Pirelli took the how-bad-will-our-tires-suck-this-week approach. Bridgestone found that kind of advertising wasn't worth the trouble, and I've no clue what they're smoking at Pirelli. Frankly, I've never paid much attention to their tires before, but after seeing them in action, I'd have second thoughts about buying a pencil eraser these days if it had Pirelli's name on it.

So to me it means that a tire war is the right path. At least it adds an element of competition rather than chance. Sucks to have your team pick the wrong side, of course. Perhaps the solution would be to have the teams be able to choose which tire works best each weekend.

One shouldn't forget that the primary difference between '05 and today is refueling, which changes the tire dynamic entirely.

[Cam]

I'm not so sure. I doubt any tyre company would offer tyres under these conditions, that I can agree too. Goodyear, Dunlop, Bridgestone & Michelin have all made great inroads into the domestic market. That's the whole point right, to sell more tyres? And why wouldn't they, they all showed they were winners, they could go the distance.

Everyone needs a big cup of 'can do' instead of all the negative talk and focus on red tape and gates in the path. We all know the hurdles so let's try to find solutions.

Any company wants positive PR and to increase brand exposure and ultimately, sales. So having a pathway for other tyre companies to achieve that would have them beating the FIA doors down. You have to turn that frown upside down.

[Pup]

Without competition, the best impression a tire company can hope to make is competence. That's why Bridgestone bowed out - it's not worth the trouble just to tell the world that, yes, we can in fact make tires.

Which brings me back to Pirelli.

And then quickly to Michelin, who know that it's only worth it if they can prove in doing so that they're better than the other guy, so buy our tires, dammit.

[bhall]

The irony is that Pirelli's P-Zero Rosso and Corsa "systems," as they call them, are widely praised as incredible tires. I got shouted down when I mentioned that they're probably not doing their brand any favors with their F1 program(me).

[Pup]

Yes, it's not the actual tires that turn me off about them, but the idea that someone at the company thinks they've got a killer marketing strategy going. (Though I also think they'd get smoked going head to head against either Bridgestone or Michie in F1.)

[gato azul]

Any company wants positive PR and to increase brand exposure and ultimately, sales.
So having a pathway for other tyre companies to achieve that would have them beating the FIA doors down.

While I agree with your first sentence, the question is, is F1 the only (surely not) or the best way to achieve this aim.
Not sure Bridgestone felt that way in 2005 (positive PR & brand exposure).
It remains to be seen, if Pirelli get's the ROI from their F1 engagement, they want to get.
If not, it remains to be seen, who is willing to trow his hut into the ring, so to speak.
Bridgestone just bowed out of F1, as their was nothing more to gain from it for them, at this point.

Most of the manufacturers who would like the exposure to "put their brand on the global map" probably don't have the know how, and risk a Pirelli like scenario or much worse then that, so they will tread carefully.
A single dead due to a tyre failure, will do a load of "harm" to your band image, and can wipe out "all the good years" in the blink of an eye.
The big players don't need this kind of branding exercise to sell their tyres, for the same reason Coca Cola don't need F1 to sell coke.

A tyre war may is tempting, but only if you are confident in your abilities and have deep enough pockets to fund a full blown tyre war.
Take a look at how wary the engine manufacturers are when it comes to an possible engine/KERS war under the next generation rules (in F1).
Would you not think, that the can't wait to prove, that they can build the "best" engine, KERS, turbo etc. etc.?
Would that not be the reason to be in F1, to show this to the world?

Does not look that way to me, so why would it be different in the tyre case?
To make it clear, I'm all for it, tyre war, engines everything goes - from an engineering PoV, but I don't see it happen any time soon, and not only in F1, the underlining trend is a general one, in almost any form of racing - with a few exceptions.

[AlpineF1]

on second thoughts i dont want the michelin and bridgestone tyres because last time one tire was always worse than the other so even if a team built a championship winning car on the worse tire it wouldnt win many races whereas if it was on the better tires it would win every race now we can see who builds the best car

[mx_tifoso]

Holy run-on sentence!!

Pirelli are here because they needed the exposure in the motorsport world, which is the simple reality. Michelin and Bridgestone already got their exposure and have moved on to different ventures, so I doubt they would return soon either separately or against Pirelli.

[AlpineF1]

Holy run-on sentence!!

Pirelli are here because they needed the exposure in the motorsport world, which is the simple reality. Michelin and Bridgestone already got their exposure and have moved on to different ventures, so I doubt they would return soon either separately or against Pirelli.

Pirelli annoy me i think dunlop should be a supplier i know they already supply other motorsports but at least there tires arent crap!!

[Harvey]

Surely any tyre war would need the reintroduction of testing? Lots and lots of testing. Which is expensive. And the teams have just decided to bin off the mid-season test next year due to the expense. Why would a tyre company, nay TWO tyre companies, suddenly decide that that expense is justified?

I don't understand the whole argument of this endeavour hurting Pirelli's image. They are the only tyres available to F1, so it doesn't matter if a set of softs are shredded within 20 laps. There's nothing better to pick, so therefore nothing better to stand as a contemporary comparison, so nothing which will be lowering Pirelli's reputation. The tyres are fitting the brief the FIA laid out to tender. And that brief was born from everyone being pi$$ed off at the soft compound Bridgestone tyres lasting an entire race distance, and yet the teams still had to make a mandated tyre change. I for one am enjoying the racing this year. I like the different strategies to tyre management (balls out to take places and manage the drop off vs steady consistency to limit the drop off). I also enjoyed the 2005 season though, for that exact reason. These are the best drivers in the world, why shouldn't we make their jobs a little difficult every now and then? We've had seasons where they could go balls out on tyres for lap after lap, and I remember those seasons only for their boredom. Yeah, it might be fun to watch a driver slam in PBs lap after lap, but that doesn't make great racing. It may well be impressive, man and machine at their limit for so long, but fans don't give a cr@p about that. They wanna see people being overtaken. They wanna see drivers wrestling with their cars, struggling to keep a place. I think a lot of people on this forum forget that we are a minority in the F1 fan world. The average fan doesn't have such knowledge, or constant desire for new knowledge, surrounding the technical and engineering aspects of motor racing. They may well be amazed and impressed by it all, but that's as far as it goes. In fact, I'd probably go so far as to say they'd be actively repulsed by the testing budgets if it got back to a full on, early 2000s-esque development war.

I think any change to the tyres in F1 should be limited to the structure of the allocation. Why not let the teams pick what tyres they want for the race? Bin off the "two compound per race" rule and let teams race with whatever ones they want. You make the choice, you stick with it. Maybe limit the number of sets for the season, as they do with engines and gearboxes. So a team could average it out and have X/20 sets per weekend, whereas another team could choose to take a hit and have 5 sets for the race at circuit A and average that out with only 1 set at circuit B (Silverstone and Monaco, for example).

[SeijaKessen]

I'd love to see Goodyear come back to F1, but realistically, what incentive is there for them to do so?

From a tire manufacturer POV, are there really any superb benefits to supplying tires to F1 nowadays?

There's probably more to lose than there is to gain. What bhall said regarding the current Pirelli tires doing no favors to their image is something that does have merit. Regardless of how good Pirelli road tires are, anyone watching the silly putty tires of 2012 can't think too highly of them whether they like the racing or not. However one feels about the racing on the track, the one agreement that does exist regards the tire longevity. I have not seen too many people talking about how great the longevity of the tires are even if they do like the racing right now. Most fans have seen their teams hurt by the tires during at least one race this season. Such things do not endear the masses to Pirelli long term.

Michelin possibly coming back would be interesting. But I would not want to see them come back at the expense of their Le Mans program. There's more upside these days to being involved with Le Mans than F1 on all fronts.

[Pup]

Surely any tyre war would need the reintroduction of testing? Lots and lots of testing.

I don't think there's anything that would require additional testing. Just like with the teams themselves, testing would be needed at the beginning of the season to work out reliability - but performance testing during the season is only needed if the other guy is doing it too.

I don't understand the whole argument of this endeavour hurting Pirelli's image.

Like I said, the best image a single tire supplier can hope to achieve is one of competence. "We can build a tire to Formula 1 specifications." For an unknown tire company, or for one with a bad image, then maybe that's enough. For guys like Bridgestone and Michelin, it isn't. They already have that level of consumer confidence in their brands, so the mere exposure of F1 offers little at great cost - in fact, they risk damaging that consumer confidence if for some reason they can't produce the necessary performance (e.g., Michelin at Indy).

So when Pirelli entered the bidding for F1, that told me that either they felt they had an image problem or they didn't understand the marketing dynamic. Perhaps both. Let's assume that they are indeed producing exactly what the FIA wants: it's still a losing proposition for them because it associates their brand with poor performance. There's nothing about the tires that advances the performance of the cars. In fact the tires hold them back, by design (we're told). Would McLaren or Ferrari purposely produce an underperforming product? Would they ever associate their brand with mediocrity? Never, at least not on purpose. So yes, Pirelli's presence in F1 raises a lot of questions for me about their company: Do they have such a bad reputation that they feel even a negative association with F1 helps them? Do they not understand the psychology of marketing? Are they really just crap at making tires and the FIA and teams are concocting this story to save face? Is there anything - anything - about their presence in F1 that makes me want to buy their tires? It just seems completely stupid to me.

[Fans] wanna see people being overtaken. They wanna see drivers wrestling with their cars, struggling to keep a place. I think a lot of people on this forum forget that we are a minority in the F1 fan world. The average fan doesn't have such knowledge, or constant desire for new knowledge, surrounding the technical and engineering aspects of motor racing. They may well be amazed and impressed by it all, but that's as far as it goes.

Maybe. To paraphrase Menken, no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the general public. I don't know the majority of the F1 market. Living in the US, where F1 has to be sought out to be enjoyed, the fanbase is self-limited to those who understand the sport. So perhaps my experience is skewed. Still, I'm optimistic enough to think that fans would know and appreciate the difference between true and manufactured competition. They may not know it until they see it, but when they do, they would appreciate the difference. The problem is that the solution hasn't been found yet, and most of the arguments I see that are for and against seem to be far too constrained by what we have seen. Like Ford said, "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me 'A faster horse.'"

My opinion is that the passing problem (if there is a problem) is an aerodynamic one and that's where the solution will be found. The best that the tires can do is to add a layer of artificial performance differential to the cars.

[Jersey Tom]

They wanna see people being overtaken. They wanna see drivers wrestling with their cars, struggling to keep a place.

Those are two conflicting goals IMO. Want drivers attacking? Have good tires.