Pirelli 2013

[Sombrero]

Yeah so reports say they found cuts in all the dmged/broken tires, and no delaminations.

Wonder what kerb it was that cut them.

Yes, Pirelli at the cutting edge...

[Huntresa]

Yeah so reports say they found cuts in all the dmged/broken tires, and no delaminations.

Wonder what kerb it was that cut them.

Yes, Pirelli at the cutting edge...

xD The weird part is that the sidewalls this year was suppose to be stronger then before, what has changed ?

[turbof1]

They are FINALLY getting the message:

http://www.racer.com/f1-teams-pushing-f ... le/301094/

Formula 1 teams are pushing for next month's young driver test at Silverstone to be ditched in favour of a full-on tyre test with race drivers to help Pirelli overcome its current problems.

With the sport now accepting that something needs to be done to ensure there is no repeat of the tyre failures that blighted the British Grand Prix, pressure is being put on the FIA to consider abandoning the running of young drivers.

So if they ditch the young driver's test, which would probably take on at a later date, I assume Mercedes would be allowed to participate at this test, if the young driver's test runs at a later time?

[Huntresa]

They are FINALLY getting the message:

http://www.racer.com/f1-teams-pushing-f ... le/301094/

Formula 1 teams are pushing for next month's young driver test at Silverstone to be ditched in favour of a full-on tyre test with race drivers to help Pirelli overcome its current problems.

With the sport now accepting that something needs to be done to ensure there is no repeat of the tyre failures that blighted the British Grand Prix, pressure is being put on the FIA to consider abandoning the running of young drivers.

So if they ditch the young driver's test, which would probably take on at a later date, I assume Mercedes would be allowed to participate at this test, if the young driver's test runs at a later time?

Perhaps, since it would be foolish to not run with the full grid to test as much as possible when you can.

BUt thats next month, what about this next weekend ? Sure its nurburg so no high speed corners to speak of but still a worry.

[turbof1]

That's too soon anyway. No way you can make a well considered choice, replan production and get tyres in time in Germany next Friday morning.

[WhiteBlue]

So I guess the need is for a tyre more tolerant of extreme heat and temperature that wears away at the same rate.

I don't think that is the right analysis. The energy balance of the tyres got affected by making the shoulder softer and generating more heat much easier. That is the root cause of the fragile tyres. Those teams that manage the 2013 tyres best like Lotus are very carefully avoiding any contribution to dissipate work into the tyre shoulder simplistically explained by a soft suspension that makes the tyre work a lot less. Those like Red Bull have too little scope for suspension softening because their aerodynamic concept requires very small tolerances in rake and ride height. At least that seems like a sensible explanation to me.

If it were just a case of making compounds more heat resistant I'm sure Pirelli could come up with a solution. But the problem is the excess of heat dissipation in the shoulders and that will not go away unless they make a fundamental change to the construction.

The second point is the steel band instead of the Kevlar reinforcement. I think the idea was good but the image it creates of Pirelli is detrimental. They will abandon this idea simply for marketing and image reasons. It actually reminds me of the Michelin problems in Indianapolis 2005. They also added a steel belt and the tyre shoulder ruptures under dynamic loads. My personal view is that Michelin had a problem with hitting a resonance frequency which is probably the worst problem you can have. It shows that you have to be extremely careful when you modify the spring and damper properties of the tyres. They are integral to the suspension properties and teams rely on the tyre manufacturer to be very consistent and conservative with the safety.

Generally I think that Pirelli does too much messing around with the tyres in order to generate publicity.

In May I was looking at the possible root cause for the problem when I posted the above. I thought that excessive heat dissipation in the shoulder was at fault. That problem has now been made worse by the stronger bonding process as Dragonfly suggested.

The stronger bonding between belt and protector simply moved the breaking point to the next weaker part and bond - the side walls (or shoulders, not sure about the exact English term)....

I hope that Pirelli are more objective and more safety concerned when their next statement comes out. If just a different bonding process can cause those massive explosions the underlying root cause has to be taken serious as a safety issue. The next step has to be a new and safe 2013 Mark II specification IMO. Even the FiA agrees now that F1 has a safety issue with the Mark I tyres specification.

I don't know what they can do for Germany and Hungary - where no new spec will probably be available - but the focus must be on the process to come to safe tyres for the rest of the season. I assume that the Nürburgring and Hungary track characteristics are far less destructive to the tyre shoulder than Silverstone's. So they might get away with monitoring temperatures and potentially issuing emergency measures when they see indications of overheating.

The introduction of the Mark II spec should utilize all the data that Pirelli generated at their Barcelona test with Mercedes. I think they need to openly review that test results with the teams and with the FiA. And if it was conclusive about the use of Kevlar to stop the over heating in the Merc tyres that solution should be implemented ASAP.

I'm a bit of two minds about the proposal to drop the young driver test and use it as an opportunity for Pirelli to test tyres. With regard to a remedy for the current safety problem Pirelli should not need such a test. The teams - lead by Ferrari - seem to be keen to replace the young drivers with their race drivers. I have my doubts that this is motivated by safety. They seem to be more interested to do performance tests. It will be interesting to see what is decided on that issue on Wednesday. One thing is clear though, the necessary work towards a Mark II spec should not be delayed in order to give the teams opportunities for performance testing. First the solution must be found and implemented. Second the sporting working group needs to discuss measures how the sporting equity is maintained.

[Huntresa]

Nice Ted Kravitz on his notebook snarky saying they switched to steel belt cause its cheaper :D:D

[Mika1]

The verdict says YDT not a full test. In that case Mercedes will take part, especially if it's about safety.

[turbof1]

Nice Ted Kravitz on his notebook snarky saying they switched to steel belt cause its cheaper :D:D

To be fair, when I get shot by pieces of rubber coming off from a driver in front his rim, I'd rather wear kevlar then steel #drypirellijoke

[andartop]

From gpupdate.net:

Speaking after the race, Pirelli Motorsport Director Paul Hembery refused to give much away before the completion of full analysis, but said the problem was new.

"Obviously today wasn’t foreseen," Hembery explained. "We’ve seen something new. It's a different type of problem. We’re currently performing our analysis."

He added: "We’ve got to go away and understand what happened. When we’ve got the facts then we can understand what’s happened and get to the core of the issue. We take these things seriously and when we have the answers we’ll let you know."

Since they haven't performed a full analysis yet and they are not sure what happened how can they say "it's something new"?

[Cam]

Since they haven't performed a full analysis yet and they are not sure what happened how can they say "it's something new"?

When you don't understand your product - every result is new.

At least Pirelli have the jingle for their revised marketing campaign:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfYoNPJcN30[/youtube]

[Jersey Tom]

The tire situation has gone from bad to worse to absurd.

They can go do a full on 2013 car tire test, but I'm almost not even sold that this is going to be the solution. We can talk about differences of 2013 vs 2012 spec cars and Pirelli not being able to follow along exactly with team aero updates and whatever... but to some degree, so what? I feel it's similar to any other design situation - you know you'll never have a 100% prediction of all the load cases and whatever, so you put in safety margin. I feel like something fundamental is missing from their internal process of being able to design and build tires consistently with an appropriate amount of margin, and to predict failure modes. Not sure track testing will solve that deficiency (if it does exist).

I think this is what those of us who have been pretty firm critics have been fearful of since the beginning - getting into a situation where as a smaller company without as much success in high profile and high demand racing.. you end up shooting yourself in the foot and being in a tough spot that's hard to dig out of. On that note, I still say there's only so much "Well it's not Pirelli's fault that [whatever]..." before you have to step back and say, they signed up for this contract and should have known what they were getting into.

We'll see if they can dig themselves out of the deepening hole.

[WhiteBlue]

I feel it's similar to any other design situation - you know you'll never have a 100% prediction of all the load cases and whatever, so you put in safety margin. I feel like something fundamental is missing from their internal process of being able to design and build tires consistently with an appropriate amount of margin, and to predict failure modes.

That much is obvious, but that has happened to Michelin in 2005 as well. So it is not new that something like that can happen, and happen to very experienced high performance tyre makers as well.

I think this is what those of us who have been pretty firm critics have been fearful of since the beginning - getting into a situation where as a smaller company without as much success in high profile and high demand racing.. you end up shooting yourself in the foot and being in a tough spot that's hard to dig out of. On that note, I still say there's only so much "Well it's not Pirelli's fault that [whatever]..." before you have to step back and say, they signed up for this contract and should have known what they were getting into.

The main point to me is the question did the tyre maker act responsibly by introducing a design that consciously gambled with a low safety margin in the context of his situation? I think there is little doubt that both companies were capable to design and deliver a tyre that would have been safe but preferred not to.

In the 2005 Michelin case you can say that they were pushed into the high risk strategy by competition pressure. In Pirelli's case it was their greediness. They already had a nice artificial "tyre war" going on. Only that their opposition wasn't a competitor but some of the teams that were unable to cope with the increasingly fragile tyres. Objectively seen Pirelli had no need to design smaller operating windows for their 2013 tyres than their 2012 tyres had. They did it simply for PR gains. They wanted the tyre talk to continue. There was no competitor that forced them into a high risk design. And that is at the core of my criticism.

I'm not calling into question their competence because others have made similar mistakes. For me their ethics are questionable. David Coulthard called the Pirellis driver killers for a good reason. Tyres are safety critical components for race cars like brakes and wings. And those must not break. That has always to be the highest priority to the single tyre supplier. To give that up for PR gains is not ok in my book.

We'll see if they can dig themselves out of the deepening hole.

That should not be the main problem. They only need to apply a reasonable safety margin and fight for it in the coming talks. The question is: Do they have the guts and the moral backbone to make good on their mistake and stay honest for the time to come as long as they are in F1 as the single tyre supplier? I'm having my doubts that they are man enough to raise their hand, take the blame and do the right thing from now. There is a big temptation to fudge it all up and keep doing the dirty as long as they can get away with it.

And that brings us to the question what the FiA should do about the next tyre supply contract. In my view they should disqualify Pirelli for the next three years and bring back Michelin simply as a reminder that you cannot gamble with safety components. That is not an issue of breaking the sporting rules by doing tests in questionable situations. The Silverstone race created a brand new situation that needs to be properly addressed. The FiA has a very high responsibility to act for the safety of the drivers, the marshals and the general public. If they don't punish Pirelli for their recklessness I believe that they are not fulfilling their responsibilities.

[Cam]

I feel it's similar to any other design situation - you know you'll never have a 100% prediction of all the load cases and whatever, so you put in safety margin.

And that brings us to the question what the FiA should do about the next tyre supply contract. In my view they should disqualify Pirelli for the next three years and bring back Michelin simply as a reminder that you cannot gamble with safety components.

Agreed. Pirelli can state 'we were asked too' all they like - no-one asked for this. It's like Pirelli have gone to an effort to prove a point - it's that absurd. No tyre should ever do that, not at 80km/h, and certainly not at 300km/h. If you're not sure what your tyres can/can't do - don't run them. I cannot believe Pirelli has supplied tyres where they've gambled with human life. It's that serious.

[autogyro]

I am not a tyre expert.
However, isnt the results we see with Pirelli tyres the same as can be expected if a supplier is asked to supply a sub standard product that is expected to work in an environment as damaging as F1?
IMO the result is obvious and the fault is with those who decided to use sub standard tyres.

Go try and see if you can engineer a gearbox that will wear at a higher rate and see how far you get.