2015 Belgian Grand Prix - 21-23 August

[Yurasyk]

In my opinion, the true reason of Vet staying up to the finish was the necessary to overtake Gro, Per, Mas (that got advantage from VSC) and probably Kvy in order to come back to the third place after the second pit. So they decided to guarantee 3rd or at least 4th place if there would not be the tire blow-up.

[LionKing]

Who went as long as Vettel?

It doesn't matter as he was well below 40 laps. Cars are supposed to ride the Kerbs! And they have to ride them well for good lap times. Pirelli has made the recommendation for the race. I am sure that is not just a number under "no kerb", "formation lap speed" conditions.

EDIT: Also if Vettel's tires were worn out much sooner than expected, then his lap times would have suffered greatly. They did not.

[Sixbarboost]

I wonder what Vettel was thinking when staying on the racing line for almost a whole lap?

[Sixbarboost]

Did anyone else notice the difference in rear wing between Mercedes- and Renault-engined cars?

[Sniffit]

Who went as long as Vettel?

It doesn't matter as he was well below 40 laps. Cars are supposed to ride the Kerbs!

Being able to and supposed to are two quite different things. Curbs are there to disuade drivers from taking short-cuts, not act as some sort of aid or obstacle that has to be negotiated ala motorcross.

[Andres125sx]

Degradation and catastrophic failure are 2 VERY different things. Pirelli were not asked to make tires that grenade when their time is up.

Hembrey said: The tyres were completely gone, this would happen with every tyre when there's no more rubber left.

If he's telling the truth, then the explosion was unavoidable from a manufacturing perspective. The thing that doesn't add up is how consistent Vettel's pace was. No sign of deg.

Marc Gene said in spanish tv here tyres don´t show any sign, they degrade suddenly without previous warning

[giantfan10]

Funny how bridgestones never blew out despite being pushed at 10 times the rate for the entire races more often than not.
Bottom line: PIRELLI IS ******* INCOMPETENT AT THEIR JOB.

Wow, how wrong can a supposed fan of F1 be? The tyres are known to be fragile as they wear. That's what Pirelli were asked to do; bring tyres that will give, on average, 2 stops per race. Ferrari gambled and lost the bet. It's fortunate that it only ended in red faces and not a serious accident.

Facts: Pirelli's suggested tire life is 40 laps at this circuit
on lap 28 of use the tire explodes
last time i checked when a tire reaches the end of its life it loses massive amounts of grip... IT DOES NOT EXPLODE.
the penalty for running the tire for approx 70% of its suggested life span should be a massive loss of grip not an explosion.
Ferrari is somehow to blame for pushing the envelope well within the recommended tire life limit?
Vettel is crying because while keeping a car with fresher tires behind him his right rear blew up?

[FoxHound]

Who went as long as Vettel?

It doesn't matter as he was well below 40 laps. Cars are supposed to ride the Kerbs! And they have to ride them well for good lap times. Pirelli has made the recommendation for the race. I am sure that is not just a number under "no kerb", "formation lap speed" conditions.

EDIT: Also if Vettel's tires were worn out much sooner than expected, then his lap times would have suffered greatly. They did not.

Did you see Vettel at eau rouge? Over 300kmh with near the entire car off the race track. Others did it too, but not for as long as Vettel.
And that's the point.

Vettel's times demonstrate 1 thing clearly, he was driving to a target time. There were no big improvement or increase in lap time. Wear still occurs.

[FoxHound]

Re Pirelli tyre recommendations.

Was this not done prior to the start of the gp weekend?

And is it also not true Ferrari ran the tyre underinflated?

[Andres125sx]

40 laps max must be at certain conditions, track temp can change dramatically tyre life, downforce setup can vary tyre wear a lot, driving in clean air or behind another car is another factor, driving style, the car suffering under or oversteer...

You can´t take the 40 laps limit as a rule of thumb, it will depend on many parameters

About the kerb recomendation, I remember hearing someone saying the problem with kerbs is not going over them, but going past them as it´s the higher edge of the kerp what may damage the tyre, it´s the most sharp. I remember Vettel going too wide, well past the kerb more than once

[Phil]

I am a little surprised by the tire discussion. I am with Fox completely. Simply because the tire manufacturer suggested that it may be possible that the tire might make a 40 lap stint, doesnt mean it is going to. There are various factors that would clearly hamper a tires performance to sustain such loads over these many laps; tire pressure, track/tire temperatures, loads by hitting kerbs hard etc. Vettel might have been managing is pace for pretty much the entire stint, but not towards the end when defending and fighting oversteer moments. The load was simply too high for the tires at that point. Noone else had any troubles, suggesting that the 1 stop Vettel attempted did play a significant role.

I agree that a tire blowup is not what you'd want, but we cant expect these tires to perform miracle acts while being designed to enable exciting multiple pitstop races in an era where there is a ban on refueling. Cant have it both ways.

[Sixbarboost]

...
I agree that a tire blowup is not what you'd want, but we cant expect these tires to perform miracle acts while being designed to enable exciting multiple pitstop races in an era where there is a ban on refueling. Cant have it both ways.

Agreed, at the sme time, tyre blowups is nothing new i itself, while curb-hopping as obviously a contributing factor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiV6hMZdqMA

[Juzh]

Re Pirelli tyre recommendations.

Was this not done prior to the start of the gp weekend?

And is it also not true Ferrari ran the tyre underinflated?

What? that straw clutching

[santos]

About the blown tire of Vettel, i don't think Pirelli did a great job. They don't guarantee 40 laps, but how many do they? "Maybe it can last 40 laps, but we don't know if you can even make one" - that's the message Pirelli is transmiting to me. Yes i'm a Ferrari fan and it's very frustrating to see loosing a third or forth place in the end of the race. It was the harder tyre, the temperature of the track wasn't very high, he wasn't racing behind someone... so what are the conditions for a tyre last 40 laps as they said it maybe could do?

[AnthonyG]

Are we sure it wasn't a puncture due to debris? I mean Vettel was driving at the track limit on a straight when it went.