Pirelli 2013

[Ferrari2183]

The point is that F1 is muti-dimensional. To have everlasting tyres with maximum grip would neuter it, make it single dimensional. Even less variety than we have now. Strategy is always been a major part of F1, and always should be.

I disagree. Let me explain.

When you look back at the pillars that the sport is built on, the history, you see dominance, individual brilliance and engineering marvels. Not strategy. To give but a few examples - the Silver Arrows absolutely dominated the sport and built a reputation that stands today - McLaren/Honda, does anymore need to be said - Williams active suspension - nothing touched those cars - Ferrari & Schumacher - the epitome of dominance - RB7, supreme.

Strategy was nowhere to be seen. Teams were not pre-planning out stops to get a 'undercut' nor were they ever considering letting other cars past on track to hopefully wash out near the top at the finish. There was but one goal - build the fastest car and leave everyone for dust. That's the goal of every racer. That's what we've lost.

'Strategy' is a PR term used to validate having a close show - which is what the powers that be want only because they said they had falling numbers of viewers. Simple. This has nothing to do with the preservation of the sport, or the spirit of the sport - it's numbers and cash. They could of all taken a cash hit and kept the sport 'pure' - but they all sold out for the highest dollar and created a bastard child of advertising & racing - that no-one is happy is with.

Note: apologies for the coarse word - but it's used for emphasise.

You have a point but during the McLaren/Honda and Williams era the cars didn't have overdeveloped aero and there were no tyre restrictions whatsoever. You could bolt on a set of hards and drive it to the finish line, but you would have to conserve along the way as well. Also, during the Ferrari dominance strategy played a VERY, VERY big part due to refuelling. This should not be brushed aside because there were races when a driver went for a much longer stint and had to wave others by too ala Alonso vs Kimi in Silverstone 2005.

Furthermore, without this turning into a team vs team cesspit, it is interesting that you mention the RB7 because that car, as we have now, had the best compromise between qualifying pace and race pace (as Ferrari now) due to the way the car worked the tyres.

But I digress, things actually came to head during the 2010 season when a 2 second a lap faster car couldn't follow closely enough to affect a pass around certain tracks and was forced to pit with the intention of finding some clear air. This is when undercutting/strategic pit stop passing started because it was just nigh on impossible to do it on track although this happened in the refuelling era to an extent too.

Pirelli as far as I'm concerned has been a Godsend but they really should find a better balance. I'm just against that balance adjustment taking place mid season.

[Kiril Varbanov]

Force India are going to hard veto any changes for Canada, according to Tobi from AMuS. Pirelli had the intention to inform the teams officially today, but paddock is buzzing with Force India word - No.

[Nomore]

Force India are going to hard veto any changes for Canada, according to Tobi from AMuS. Pirelli had the intention to inform the teams officially today, but paddock is buzzing with Force India word - No.

Because Ferrari and Lotus have said "yes" ?!?!

[Ferrari2183]

Force India are going to hard veto any changes for Canada, according to Tobi from AMuS. Pirelli had the intention to inform the teams officially today, but paddock is buzzing with Force India word - No.

Gazetta reported this yesterday but didn't name which team was against the changes. I had a feeling that it was Force India because they are the ones who had the delamination at the exit of a high speed turn. I refrained from posting it because there were just too many stories doing the rounds yesterday.

Come to think of it, Force India stand to lose more than any other team with the rear tyres changing. Teams like McLaren and Williams would quite likely leap ahead due it being believed that they got their aero wrong with the current tyres.

[Jersey Tom]

I don't think that any tire maker could have succeeded.

No? Seems there had been single suppliers for decades where there was good racing without tread delams or wild fall off.

None in the past have been directed to construct tires that have a limited life.

I can't agree with that. Tire companies get directives of what balance of performance, fall off, or any other parameter there should be. This is true outside of Pirelli, outside of F1, and even has parallels outside of racing. Some feedback can come from the governing series body, some from drivers who do track tests evaluating different tire options. I don't see the Pirelli situation as being that unique. It's one thing to say, "Let's have some balance of fall-off for strategy" but the current situation seems like it's been over the top since the beginning.

I was willing to cut them some slack at the very beginning in that it's a tall order they were filling in a very short time frame and with limited resources. But at the same time, if you're going to pony up and be the sole supplier for a very high visibility series and the highest stakes racing in Europe.. you have to know what you're getting into and be able to deliver. That's the reality of pro racing and pro sports.. stakes and expectations are high, and you're expected to deliver. There's little if any coddling, and it can be very blunt and/or harsh.

The throwing treads bit recently is what did it for me. That's just unacceptable. Not only that, but then first dismissing it as a debris "puncture" and then trying to say "Oh well we can't track test these things, it's not our bad." I feel like, if you don't have track testing available then you have to do lab durability testing. And if you can't ensure sufficient durability / safety margin from your in house lab testing for something like a big, fundamental construction change of going from aramid to steel belts... then you just don't to it.

It's just so alien to me for a supplier to be cut so much slack for so long. I'm in large part so critical of the F1 tire situation in that I'm used to race series where if there's so much as one race with extreme wear, or tons of fall off to the point where drivers are in "defense mode" of trying not to wreck rather than racing each other... it's not praised, it's attacked (and rightfully so because that's unacceptable performance). Would be just the same if the engines or cars weren't durable and we "spiced up the racing" by having drivers cruising around at part throttle waiting for their motors to blow up. So when I see all of this happening in F1, it just drives me nuts. It's.. I don't know if insulting is the word, but I can't think of a great synonym.

I just don't see why F1 has to be such a circus with this crap and propped up on crutches. Why can't it just be like any normal race series with a single supplier of product 'X' (be it tires or otherwise).

[bhall]

[...]
I don't know if insulting is the word, but I can't think of a great synonym.

[...]

Patronizing. It's goddamn patronizing.

[Huntresa]

Ppl should just shut up and stop watching or go racing without whining, fans and drivers.

Ppl who complain do so without actually giving any solution to the problem except make them harder, which would lead to static racing again, which would then make the same ppl complain again. And around we go...

[Jonnycraig]

Ppl should just shut up and stop watching or go racing without whining, fans and drivers.

Ppl who complain do so without actually giving any solution to the problem except make them harder, which would lead to static racing again, which would then make the same ppl complain again. And around we go...

Did we get processions at the end of last season? No.

But carry on..

[Huntresa]

Ppl should just shut up and stop watching or go racing without whining, fans and drivers.

Ppl who complain do so without actually giving any solution to the problem except make them harder, which would lead to static racing again, which would then make the same ppl complain again. And around we go...

Did we get processions at the end of last season? No.

But carry on..

No but we didnt get teams who didnt do their homework either(except merc), but this year we do and they whine instead.

A team should be able to handle changes, they have all the data, whats there to complain about ?

[Dyanxx]

Ppl should just shut up and stop watching or go racing without whining, fans and drivers.

Ppl who complain do so without actually giving any solution to the problem except make them harder, which would lead to static racing again, which would then make the same ppl complain again. And around we go...

Did we get processions at the end of last season? No.

But carry on..

No but we didnt get teams who didnt do their homework either(except merc), but this year we do and they whine instead.

A team should be able to handle changes, they have all the data, whats there to complain about ?

Red Bull were fine with the tyres last season, yet still struggled this season, why was that then?

[lebesset]

can I commend anybody who wants to hear more about this subject , and others , to read the report on today's team principals press conference which should appear later today

http://www.fia.com/

for those who don't want to bother , paul hembery said that the modifications for canada onwards are ...close to being finalised ..... ; he also stated that that should they be involved next year they will 'take a step backwards ' , in other words provide more conservative tyres on the basis that the teams will have plenty of other problems to deal with because of the new regulations
bob fearnley stated that this year some teams decided decided to base their development this year on aero , others on mechanical grip ...and that he didn't expect to hear any discussion on tyres in 2014

franz tost stated that because of the temperatures the data obtained in pre season testing this year was pretty useless , and that testing in warmer climes was a priority

[Jersey Tom]

No but we didnt get teams who didnt do their homework either(except merc), but this year we do and they whine instead.

A team should be able to handle changes, they have all the data, whats there to complain about ?

This is such an incredibly naive viewpoint on things. Two things for you to think about:

1. Tires do not bend to your whim. To put in very crude terms, think of it as 90% of what the tires are going to do and how the car is going to handle is out of the teams' control. It is intrinsic to the build of the tire from the factory. The teams and engineers can maybe try to tweak on the last 10% - though even then you're severely boxed in by limitations on durability, fitting in with aero and the rest of the suspension, etc. Or put another way, a good race engineer can tune on a suspension all day long... and a change in tire construction can completely blow away any of those changes as far as magnitude of effect.

2. The teams have all the data? What data?? Who is to say Pirelli gives the teams any significant amount of lab data on the tires? Maybe they do, maybe they don't - we're not privy to that, though from what I've heard, they've fallen short significantly in some aspects of delivering appropriate information. The bit about the 60% wind tunnel tires not having an appropriate profile is part of that which has become public knowledge. In that situation, the more "homework" you do the more you get screwed over because you are lead further and further astray by BS data. That's really quite poor form. Then there's track data which is maybe available, but that's crap compared to good lab data even under ideal conditions - much less when you're doing winter testing in non representative weather.

In this type of situation sometimes those who do the most work get shafted the most (as I mentioned earlier). Sometimes those with good insight do get rewarded with nuggets of knowledge which help them out on a race weekend. And sometimes honestly, you just stumble into something that works. You may not even know why it works exactly, but if it gives you a performance edge.. so be it.

[kooleracer]

Pirelli threatens to pull out of Formula 1 over 2014 contract
By Jonathan Noble Thursday, May 23rd 2013, 16:26 GMT

Pirelli has warned teams that it will pull out of Formula 1 at the end of the year unless it gets an answer soon on whether they want a fresh contract from 2014.

Talks between the Italian tyre manufacturer and the teams about a new deal have stalled in recent weeks, and Pirelli says time is running out on it being able to produce tyres in time to be fully ready for the new 2014 regulations.

Paul Hembery, Pirelli's motorsport director, said in Monaco on Thursday that F1 was facing an 'extremely serious' situation, and that if the matter was not resolved very quickly then his company would find it impossible to make new tyres in time.

"Apparently on September 1, we are meant to tell them [the teams] everything that they need to know with the tyres for next season, but now we are in mid-May," he explained.

"You can imagine how ludicrous that is when we have not got contracts in place.

"Maybe we won't be here..."

Pirelli is already understood to have agreed a commercial deal with F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone about remaining in the sport, but there has still been no word from the FIA about its plans to put the tyre contract out to tender.

Furthermore, Pirelli's attempts to finalise individual contracts with the teams have been thwarted by a number of outfits being reluctant to accept the terms on offer.

Hembery said that his Pirelli bosses had already set an internal deadline for when they needed an answer.

And although he refused to divulge when that was, he said that teams had to wake up to the long lead time his company needed if it was going to be prepared to stay in F1.

"I have always said we will never declare an internal deadline but clearly time is already too late," he said.

"Things are getting, as far as we can, extremely serious because the changes next year are substantial.

"The sport has to take a rapid decision because aside from having the fixed resources in the business involved in F1, there is also a technical job. We need to do a technical job as well.

"It is not just a case of maybe putting a harder compound on to this year's tyres - the changes are so dramatic that we will need to do a thorough re-engineering of the tyre. That takes time, so the longer is goes on it makes our job impossible.

"There comes a time where we will not have time to do the job any more."

Autosport.com


Hope that they leave, really hoping for Bridgestone or Michelin. 2014 should be about the new powerunit and not about these ridiculous tyres situation we have now.

[Sombrero]

This is the right time to stop the absolute non-sense that the single tyre supplier is. Pirelli wants to leave ? Okay let's do it !

[VIZSLA]

Ppl should just shut up and stop watching or go racing without whining, fans and drivers.

Ppl who complain do so without actually giving any solution to the problem except make them harder, which would lead to static racing again, which would then make the same ppl complain again. And around we go...

Did we get processions at the end of last season? No.

But carry on..

No but we didnt get teams who didnt do their homework either(except merc), but this year we do and they whine instead.

A team should be able to handle changes, they have all the data, whats there to complain about ?

That they don't in fact have all the data for one thing.