CriXus wrote:Vettel's last stint:
1:56.128
1:56.184
1:56.008
1:56.115
1:56.348
2:22.634 – VSC
2:04.049 – VSC
1:55.397
1:55.386
1:55.808
1:55.765
1:55.856
1:55.551
1:55.316
1:55.523
1:55.432
1:55.443
1:55.497
1:55.761
1:55.884
1:55.711
1:55.520
1:55.696
1:56.407
1:55.949
1:56.116
Nowhere near the end of the tire's life.
People don't seem to understand the Pirelli's, the old days you'd do laps and you'd lose say 2/10ths every 5 laps then all of a sudden you'd be losing 3/10ths per lap. They had as I understand harder and harder compounds as you went through the tire so you got less grip, got slow but the tire effectively was harder and stronger. The current tires are the same compound right the way through, temps dictate how fast they wear and if you keep them within the right temp you will wear them down to nothing without losing a single 1/10th in time. It's a case of (I have no idea the actual temps so these are examples) tire temps of 150c/15 laps, 140c/17 laps 120c/20 laps, 110c/25 laps, etc. The temps you run at dictate the lap time you can achieve. To go a certain length the team give the drivers a target lap time based on tire temp and they stick through it over a stint.
A few years ago you'd start a stint on say 1:50's, finish in 1:54's, the next stint would start at 1:47's and finish at 1:51's, etc. Now you do 15 laps at 1:51, pit, then do 15 laps at 1:48, pit then do 15 laps at 1:46.
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2015/07/26/f ... e-for-win/
This being a great example, on the first chart click select none then select Vettel's times(for someone out front doing his perfect race strategy/target times). Absolutely flat stints, this is how these tires work, if he doubled the length of that first stint he'd have to drop temps and times but it would still be flat right up till you pit or the tire fails.
Now I'm both on the side that the tire really shouldn't fail like that, same compound through is clearly dangerous and putting in a super hard compound that is super slow to give the old 'off the cliff' indication to pit before your tire goes is sensible. However, Ferrari were utterly stupid, if they were going half the distance to the end their times would have been faster for 15 laps, then going back onto softs at the end faster again. He would have been IMHO a minimum of 10 seconds further up the track from Grosjean and extremely safe in third place had he been on a two stop strategy. The team also know what I'm saying, the tires don't degrade in the same way any more, there is an indication of tire life.
AFter practice/qualifying they will carefully see how much rubber is left on the tires and have a pretty good indication of how much further they might be able to go. I can't believe anyone would think going that long on a set of tires was a good idea. Not the first time Ferrari or ex Lotus people have attempted the one less stop strategy and seem it backfire badly.
The tires shouldn't be designed to fail in this way but they are and all the teams know it, they pushed their luck and asked for it basically, Vettel should be aiming his anger not at Pirelli but at the team for putting him at risk and FIA for asking Pirelli to make such tires.
I can fully understand Vettel's anger, it's just misdirected. As he suggested if that tire went a couple of seconds earlier he could easily have died in the resulting crash, easily. There was simply no sensible reason to attempt the one stop, two stop would have been significantly faster and at a track with one of the smallest time penalties for taking a pitstop. He'd have made back the pitstop probably twice over on a two stop strategy and not had this failure.
EDIT:- It's worth noting that Hamilton also said his tires were fine and asked to stay out, maybe it's something drivers aren't entirely aware of. These tires are perfectly capable of putting out just about the same lap time lap after lap(okay it's actually marginally slower but being offset by fuel) right up till they fail, Ferrari should absolutely have been aware of this, Vettel and the drivers really should be also.
