Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery has repeated at Korea that F1's sole tyre suppliers need to have more relevant tyre testing if it is to develop solid and reliable tyres for the 2014 season.
they are not supposed to use 2013 car.FoxHound wrote:CHT wrote:I think one possible outcome will be that FIA might impose restriction on Merc for the next test session.
On what grounds?
Mercedes where asked by Pirelli, who had clearance form the FIA.
According to the FIA themselves they gave word that a test could (not definitively was) be permitted if certain conditions were met. They then say they never heard back from either Pirelli & Mercedes and only found out the test had occurred when this news broke.FoxHound wrote:There is a document signed by the FIA which permitted the test apparently.
The FIA have said they "may" go before the international tribunal. So dependant on what has been signed, this could be closed before it gets anywhere near that.
It's not mentioned anywhere clearly that it can't be a 2013 car. That's the exact reason why Ferrari has asked for clarification. Because Ferrari did a similar test with F10 thinking that the sporting rules should take precedence whereas Mercedes used the W04 thinking that the Pirelli contract should take precedence here.CHT wrote:they are not supposed to use 2013 car.FoxHound wrote:CHT wrote:I think one possible outcome will be that FIA might impose restriction on Merc for the next test session.
On what grounds?
Mercedes where asked by Pirelli, who had clearance form the FIA.
Why not just clear the air? Why, still, all the cloak and dagger? Now was the time and they new they'd have to answer. So why not just categorically state what was tested and why? Which they still haven't done.Q: Under the filming days agreement for example other teams are invited to come and observe and so on, and they tell each other what they are doing. You must have realised that when this would came out they would be upset.
“No, because it’s completely irrelevant, it’s not relevant to what’s happening here, what’s going to happen this season. It’s looking at all sorts of solutions that may have relevance in the next 10 years, I don’t know.”
Q: But it did involve the Canadian GP tyres?
“It involved all sorts of tyres.”
Q: But it did involve tyre that you might be running in Canada?
“It involved all sorts of tyres… Let’s turn it round the other way. What do you expect us to do? The rules are very clear, it’s existed in the FIA contracts for years, and we just used it. We’ve got nothing else to add.”
Just like most religions having a tendency to use their holy books for violence, even though they all preach peace, so is this case a circumvention of that rule. Teams aren't allowed to test, but Pirelli is, and it apperently remains a Pirelli test even if they use a current car and driver from a team. I am not making this up; the FIA publicly stated that this allowed!There's a word that pretty much every hates - arbitrage. It looks like it's coming down to wording. Above all else, you have the holy bible - the Sporting Regulations. This is THE words to run a team and car by - no if's, no but's. This much is without doubt. If a team 'tests' and that means any kind of testing, regardless the circumstances and who it's for, outside of the Article 22.4 h definition, then they're in breach of the Sporting Regulations. Black and white.
I think the FIA are not sure. It appears the FIA said one thing understanding it meant one thing, the others have heard one thing and taken it as another thing - if that makes sense.turbof1 wrote:Just like most religions having a tendency to use their holy books for violence, even though they all preach peace, so is this case a circumvention of that rule. Teams aren't allowed to test, but Pirelli is, and it apperently remains a Pirelli test even if they use a current car and driver from a team. I am not making this up; the FIA publicly stated that this allowed!There's a word that pretty much every hates - arbitrage. It looks like it's coming down to wording. Above all else, you have the holy bible - the Sporting Regulations. This is THE words to run a team and car by - no if's, no but's. This much is without doubt. If a team 'tests' and that means any kind of testing, regardless the circumstances and who it's for, outside of the Article 22.4 h definition, then they're in breach of the Sporting Regulations. Black and white.
"The FIA says it was not aware that Mercedes would use a current car for this amount of running; it signed up for 100kms only. It was also not aware it would be conducted by its current race drivers and states that its approval was conditional upon the test being run by Pirelli, not the team." - James Allen
Will Pirelli be able to satisfy the FiA with regard to having asked all other teams equally to conduct this kind of test? Difficult to know how it will shake out. Somehow they had to break the stalemate.Paul Hembery wrote:In reality we were looking at next year's solutions and trying a variety of different [things]," he said. "Mercedes haven't got a clue what on earth we were testing in reality. It was 90 per cent for next year. We only changed [our plans for 2013 work] at the last minute... When asked by AUTOSPORT if Mercedes could have gained an advantage in helping it understand its tyre problems, Hembery said: "Absolutely not, no. Because it's no relevance to what's happening here. It's completely regular in that we are allowed to do 1000 kilometre of tyre testing with any team. We've done it before with another team and we've asked another team to do some work as well.
I think that will be the best and easiest solution. It didn't got visible until now, but teams, the fia and fom are making eachother's life miserabme behind the scenes. They simply cannot coop with eachother and distrust is king. Result is that everybody knows that certain things quickly have to be done, but fear the others can get an advantage, and so they block eachother from doing anything. Mercedes and pirelli might actually have broken through that. Teams will now fear mercedes gained an advantage. The simplest solution now is that they all run a pirelli test now to get back on equal ground.WhiteBlue wrote:Toto Wolf said on Sky Germany that all tested tyres were black and unmarked. So the team and its drivers had no idea what they were testing. They were told it is all for 2014. If that is true I don't see that Merc did anything wrong under sporting regulations. It would be a Pirelli test if they are the only party to get data from it. Also confimed on Autosport.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/107676Will Pirelli be able to satisfy the FiA with regard to having asked all other teams equally to conduct this kind of test? Difficult to know how it will shake out. Somehow they had to break the stalemate.Paul Hembery wrote:In reality we were looking at next year's solutions and trying a variety of different [things]," he said. "Mercedes haven't got a clue what on earth we were testing in reality. It was 90 per cent for next year. We only changed [our plans for 2013 work] at the last minute... When asked by AUTOSPORT if Mercedes could have gained an advantage in helping it understand its tyre problems, Hembery said: "Absolutely not, no. Because it's no relevance to what's happening here. It's completely regular in that we are allowed to do 1000 kilometre of tyre testing with any team. We've done it before with another team and we've asked another team to do some work as well.
My guess is that Pirelli will offer all other teams the same testing and some will accept to do it. Generally I think nothing but a slap on the hand will come out of it. Pirelli are not so dumb to get themselves into a situation from where there is no escape for them. This will blow over soon.
You have to have a certain understanding for Pirelli here. They are in a difficult situation and they are understandably fed up with all the politicking. If you look at the reality the FiA will not be able to punish them much for it. Bernie has Hankook waiting in the wings to put commercial pressure on Pirelli and one has to assume that this is going on in the background. But in reality Hankook would not be in a position to cope with the ongoing politicking any better than Pirelli would. In fact they would be totally lost were Pirelli managed to get themselves some valuable testing and a mountain of 2012/13 data. So realistically the teams are on the hook. They don't want completely unknown tyres for the unknown 2014 cars. Only Pirelli can get them into a relatively comfortable development situation. Allan is quite right that Pirelli had little chance but to steam roll it all through as they did to protect their position and they will benefit by being unassailable for next year. Merc cannot be punish substantially either. They only did what they were told and gained no data of any relevance. It would be hard to show a violation by them in my view.James Allan wrote:What is the bigger picture here?
Many things are up in the air in F1 at the moment; there is no Concorde Agreement six months after the last one expired, there is dissent over the new 2014 hybrid engines and their significantly higher costs and there are some mixed views to say the least about commercial rights holder CVC wanting to float the sport on the Stock Market – so the FIA, Bernie Ecclestone and the 11 teams are very far from aligned at the moment and there is turmoil behind the scenes.
In this context, Pirelli is fed up with the failure of the sport and the teams to agree a new contract for 2014 and for being painted as the problem. They argue that the dysfunctional relationship between the teams and lack of trust between them over testing means that they are being put in an impossible situation by being asked to produce safe racing tyres which also provide a certain amount of ‘strategy’ in the racing, but without being able to test them on a race track. Previous tyre suppliers in F1, like Bridgestone did hundreds of thousands of miles of testing.
Their recent pronouncements have shown that Pirelli are fed up with being the whipping boy and are getting tougher in their stance; on Thursday Hembery said that Pirelli might not be in F1 next year if the teams, Ecclestone and the FIA don’t get their act together. That would put F1 in turmoil as it would be difficult for a new supplier to come in and tool up to produce F1 tyres at short notice in time for February testing, especially if they too have no opportunity to test the products on a race track.
Complicating matters further is the fact that the 2014 cars will make very different demands on the tyres due to new aerodynamic rules and totally different power delivery from the new hybrid engine and drivetrain units. They will have much higher torque, for example.
Pirelli clearly made a mistake by being more “aggressive” with the 2013 tyres despite having limited opportunity to test them beforehand due to the restrictions and it has suffered some reputational damage as a result. But now the matter has become intensely political and is about far more than whether the races are two stops, three stops or four stops.
This issue is not about testing, it’s about F1′s dysfunctionality at this moment.
Tyres are not only about compounds. There are myriads of permutations from varying construction details and compounds. If you only see black, unmarked tyres your chances at correlating it to later products are absolutely zero in my view.bhallg2k wrote:...Beyond that, how difficult can it be to correlate the data itself once the compounds are known at a later date?
