Pirelli 2013

[bhall]

Fair enough. We'll say Ferrari and Lotus were "just plain lucky" earlier this season when the 2013-spec tires just happened to play nicely with their cars. I can live with that.

But, don't we now have to ascribe Red Bull's success to luck as well? They led both Championships before Pirelli reverted to the 2012-spec tires, but that was dumb luck, right? I mean, we just decided that it's impossible for any team to have figured out how to make best use of the 2013-spec tires in such a short period of time and with limited data. What's the alternative?

According to Newey's logic, Red Bull is the luckiest team in F1.

[SectorOne]

Yeah but thats just as ridic as tyres not lasting, having to make 15 Q laps to make a strategy work...

Sometimes you get compromised in some ways and have to do just that in order to make a strategy work.
I can´t see how that is ridiculous actually.

Then the point isn´t about strategy, it´s about having tires capable of withstanding just that.

[Huntresa]

Fair enough. We'll say Ferrari and Lotus were "just plain lucky" earlier this season when the 2013-spec tires just happened to play nicely with their cars. I can live with that.

But, don't we now have to ascribe Red Bull's success to luck as well? They led both Championships before Pirelli reverted to the 2012-spec tires, but that was dumb luck, right? I mean, we just decided that it's impossible for any team to have figured out how to make best use of the 2013-spec tires in such a short period of time and with limited data. What's the alternative?

According to Newey's logic, Red Bull is the luckiest team in F1.

Its not luck for Red Bulls dominance, not in anyway more then that they got lucky they changed the tyres back to 2012 structure which Red Bull has vast amounts of data on and designed a car on that.

The true strenght lies in that the tyres can take the DF and that they grow much more then 2013, which helps RB and their strategy of settting up the car.

[raymondu999]

The day i hear "ok we are going to need 15 qualifying laps now to make this strategy work" over the radio i know F1 is back to the good ol days.

To be fair I do remember that happening. Brazil 2011, Button says he can't feel the options well, so instead of going OOOP as the others were that day, he went OOPP, and was just constantly tyre-saving needlessly (as he had the extra life from using a second set of primes rather than a 3rd set of options) and was told to do 20 qualifiers at the end of the race.

[Jonnycraig]

Fair enough. We'll say Ferrari and Lotus were "just plain lucky" earlier this season when the 2013-spec tires just happened to play nicely with their cars. I can live with that.

But, don't we now have to ascribe Red Bull's success to luck as well? They led both Championships before Pirelli reverted to the 2012-spec tires, but that was dumb luck, right? I mean, we just decided that it's impossible for any team to have figured out how to make best use of the 2013-spec tires in such a short period of time and with limited data. What's the alternative?

According to Newey's logic, Red Bull is the luckiest team in F1.

The RB9 was the class of the field so in the early season lottery, their number came up more often than other teams.

[FW17]

Why are Pirelli always asking for testing? Cant there tyre modeling be done a test rig with suspension and engine data from team?
Pirelli should be having the asphalt surfaces scans which could be replicated on the rolling road, temp of the surface can be controlled, so what does Pirelli finding difficult? is it that they just don't have the same commitment to F1 as the teams in development? Or Pirelli just using lack of testing in F1 as a political defense for poor tyre technology?

Does any F1 team own a flat track tyre test bench? Does Pirelli supply race tyres to the teams other than on race weekends?

[Glyn]

This is quite interesting..... a video from 2011.

Go to 1:50.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcQ3fB8fZ4E[/youtube]

[Lycoming]

Why are Pirelli always asking for testing? Cant there tyre modeling be done a test rig with suspension and engine data from team?
Pirelli should be having the asphalt surfaces scans which could be replicated on the rolling road, temp of the surface can be controlled, so what does Pirelli finding difficult? is it that they just don't have the same commitment to F1 as the teams in development? Or Pirelli just using lack of testing in F1 as a political defense for poor tyre technology?

If only tire testing was so simple...

They do have a flat track tire test machine, but it cannot perfectly simulate the conditions a tire operates under on a race car. Sure you can get engine drive torque and suspension load data, but the ambient air temperature is typically not well controlled, surface temp is not usually controlled, and I don't know of anybody that uses scans of road surfaces. My understanding is that common practice is to use something similar to 120 grit sandpaper because it's easy to clean off the deposited rubber between runs of different tires. I also suspect, though I'm not certain, that the machine would have a hard time inputting transient loads into the tire.

To say nothing of the quality of the data that you get from the machine. The data that you get from testing rigs like that is useful, but there are a lot of things the machine cannot simulate. It is not as simple as buying the best test machine out there, and then suddenly you don't need track testing at all anymore. Even with good machines, it's not always easy to get useful information from them.

[SectorOne]

Kumho just finished three days of testing prototype Formula 1 tires around Catalunya.
Interesting.

http://pitpass.com/50425/Kumho-signals- ... -tyre-test

[Tim.Wright]

And it seems that the tyres were largely responsible for the delays yesterday:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/111570

Including the typical shifting of blame from Paul:

Asked by AUTOSPORT about wet tyre performance, Hembery replied: "How many testing sessions are we allowed to do?

The thing is, they can test as much as they want. They have cars which they can modify to their hearts content. They have test teams they can send around the world and there are numerous tracks where you can do wet testing.

The fact that they aren't doing this really tells me that they aren't taking this job seriously.

[Jonnycraig]

The thing is, they can test as much as they want. They have cars which they can modify to their hearts content. They have test teams they can send around the world and there are numerous tracks where you can do wet testing.

The fact that they aren't doing this really tells me that they aren't taking this job seriously.

They have to test with an old car and it's questionable how representative it would truly be for them. How much would it cost them to bring their several year old test car up to modern levels, if even possible. When they've had a chance to test on a current car, how many teams would have happily swapped 1000km dry running for 1000km wet running?

[Tim.Wright]

The thing is, they can test as much as they want. They have cars which they can modify to their hearts content. They have test teams they can send around the world and there are numerous tracks where you can do wet testing.

The fact that they aren't doing this really tells me that they aren't taking this job seriously.

They have to test with an old car and it's questionable how representative it would truly be for them. How much would it cost them to bring their several year old test car up to modern levels, if even possible. When they've had a chance to test on a current car, how many teams would have happily swapped 1000km dry running for 1000km wet running?

They can test with almost anything they want. Given their car is not subject any regulations, it would only be a question of money to modify it to reproduce current downforce levels.

If they can't/don't want to do it themselves, there is the excellent Toyota facility in Cologne setup to do exactly that kind of customer work. Other options could be Dallara or Wirth Research. Additionally there are countless other small-medium companies around who could do this work. There are absolutely no technical barriers stopping them from running a car with representative downforce levels.

Whats stopping them is their own lack of investment or motivation or both.

Remember that when the tyre supply went to tender, Michelin's offer was several times more expensive that Pirelli.

In my opinion, now its becoming clear why