2015 Belgian Grand Prix - 21-23 August

[zeph]

Am I the only one who expected Vettel's tires to fall off?

Yes you are, you strive on schadenfreude.

You seem to know me well, anonymous internet forum poster.

And it is 'thrive'. Not 'strive'.

[PlatinumZealot]

The number of laps the tyres can do is based on the car driving on smooth TARMAC. Vettel was driving off road over curbs and gravel every single lap. Is it not obvious that the tyre got damaged due to this? You can even see it was a small knick that progressively turned into a bigger tear and then total delamination once vettel dipped his tyre down on the right side of the track at 300kph pushishing like hell for leather TWENTY EIGHT SPA laps in a row.

That tire delaminated while it had rubber thread on it and then exploded. This is a structural issue.
Look at how other drivers were riding the curbs, for example Lewis at the exit of Eau Rouge, or Verstapen in all corners more or less.
I can somehow, difficultly accept, a tire that loses performance fast at the end of it's lifetime, but no tire should explode before it is down to canvas, and this one had quite a bit of rubber on it which we could see when it delaminated, see slow motions.
Either a structural issue that Pirelli has to address fast cause Monza will be worse, or a manufacturing problem with this one tire. In any case the tire manufacturer should man up and accept that their tire was not up to the task, instead of feeding us the same old marketing rubbish we hear from Hembery since several moons.

The tyre didnt explode though. The thread peeled away.... Then the carcas was still intact. That carcass then ballooned out and disintegrated. There was no explosion.

I can agree that if the tyres are made much thicker and had steel fibres in them that sort of failure would not happen but FOM is the one that asked pirelli to construct the tyre to be that fragile. These tyres are riduclously light weight. And little material or lack of beefiness if you want to call it that, is what you get with light weight tyres. Ferrari are not blameless either. They are not fools they know how thin these tyres are. They should not have run the tyre more than the recommended 25 laps they were told was the limit.

[bdr529]

The number of laps the tyres can do is based on the car driving on smooth TARMAC. Vettel was driving off road over curbs and gravel every single lap. Is it not obvious that the tyre got damaged due to this? You can even see it was a small knick that progressively turned into a bigger tear and then total delamination once vettel dipped his tyre down on the right side of the track at 300kph pushishing like hell for leather TWENTY EIGHT SPA laps in a row.

That tire delaminated while it had rubber thread on it and then exploded. This is a structural issue.
Look at how other drivers were riding the curbs, for example Lewis at the exit of Eau Rouge, or Verstapen in all corners more or less.
I can somehow, difficultly accept, a tire that loses performance fast at the end of it's lifetime, but no tire should explode before it is down to canvas, and this one had quite a bit of rubber on it which we could see when it delaminated, see slow motions.
Either a structural issue that Pirelli has to address fast cause Monza will be worse, or a manufacturing problem with this one tire. In any case the tire manufacturer should man up and accept that their tire was not up to the task, instead of feeding us the same old marketing rubbish we hear from Hembery since several moons.

The tyre didnt explode though. The thread peeled away.... Then the carcas was still intact. That carcass then ballooned out and disintegrated. There was no explosion.

I can agree that if the tyres are made much thicker and had steel fibres in them that sort of failure would not happen but FOM is the one that asked pirelli to construct the tyre to be that fragile. These tyres are riduclously light weight. And little material or lack of beefiness if you want to call it that, is what you get with light weight tyres. Ferrari are not blameless either. They are not fools they know how thin these tyres are. They should not have run the tyre more than the recommended 25 laps they were told was the limit.

I assume you guys mean "tread" and not thread

The tyre didnt explode though. The thread peeled away.... Then the carcas was still intact. That carcass then ballooned out and disintegrated. There was no explosion.

Anyways, I'd agree with PlatinumZealot, at lest that's the way I saw it happpen

[foxmulder_ms]

An F1 car passing through Eau Rouge is one of my favorite thing to watch in F1. It is just great.

Hamilton was impressive this weekend with his pole lab and during the race, too.

Mercedes put some more distance between themselves and Ferrari after the break. I like the design of their rear wing. I think it looks better than the traditional strait wings. IS this wing just for Spa and Monza or a general development and probably stay like this???

Disappointed with Ferrari's 1-stop gamble.

Also, disappointed with Williams' need for that huge rear wing.

Mclaren/Honda... I don't know what to say. Something tells me Alonso will quit F1.

Redbull was impressive this week.

[foxmulder_ms]

By the way, Raikkonen must have been smiling to Vestapans attempt at the last lab. There is no short cuts to gain experience.

[giantfan10]

The number of laps the tyres can do is based on the car driving on smooth TARMAC. Vettel was driving off road over curbs and gravel every single lap. Is it not obvious that the tyre got damaged due to this? You can even see it was a small knick that progressively turned into a bigger tear and then total delamination once vettel dipped his tyre down on the right side of the track at 300kph pushishing like hell for leather TWENTY EIGHT SPA laps in a row.

That tire delaminated while it had rubber thread on it and then exploded. This is a structural issue.
Look at how other drivers were riding the curbs, for example Lewis at the exit of Eau Rouge, or Verstapen in all corners more or less.
I can somehow, difficultly accept, a tire that loses performance fast at the end of it's lifetime, but no tire should explode before it is down to canvas, and this one had quite a bit of rubber on it which we could see when it delaminated, see slow motions.
Either a structural issue that Pirelli has to address fast cause Monza will be worse, or a manufacturing problem with this one tire. In any case the tire manufacturer should man up and accept that their tire was not up to the task, instead of feeding us the same old marketing rubbish we hear from Hembery since several moons.

The tyre didnt explode though. The thread peeled away.... Then the carcas was still intact. That carcass then ballooned out and disintegrated. There was no explosion.

I can agree that if the tyres are made much thicker and had steel fibres in them that sort of failure would not happen but FOM is the one that asked pirelli to construct the tyre to be that fragile. These tyres are riduclously light weight. And little material or lack of beefiness if you want to call it that, is what you get with light weight tyres. Ferrari are not blameless either. They are not fools they know how thin these tyres are. They should not have run the tyre more than the recommended 25 laps they were told was the limit.

when was Ferrari told 25 laps was the limit?
I could have sworn that i read Pirelli stated that the medium tire could last 40 laps at Spa
You may be confusing Pirreli's "optimum race strategy" with some sort of limit, where they tell what they think optimum strategy is before each GP

Here is Ferrari's take from Arrivebene:
“A one-stop race was our plan A. We decided that at 11am, using the data the engineers had collected during the practice sessions. There was a Pirelli engineer standing in our garage and he wasn’t just chewing bubblegum. He would have intervened if the data had shown anything suspicious. Our strategy was aggressive, but not risky.”

So the Pirelli engineer in the Ferrari garage didnt intervene or even question their strategy and i guess he forgot how thin the tires were ...cmon Platinum you should know better than that.
Lets not forget Rosberg earlier this weekend who had the same tire let go too here is the top 3 drivers' (IMHO)take from BBC :
BBC reports that no less than three world champions – Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel – had voiced their concerns about the safety of Pirelli’s tyres in the driver briefing on Friday after Rosberg’s tyre blow-up. The worries were dismissed with the usual excuses of ‘external influence’, which the drivers had to accept, but obviously didn’t believe, as Vettel explained unmistakably.

[SimRacer]

delete please

[Shrieker]

Well i do cheer for Hamilton but i voiced my concerns due to Pirelli's inaptitude after Rosberg's crash. People were quick to dismiss it. Everyone knows it's whole a lot more likely that the tire will slowly deflate from foreign object damage rather than spontaneously explode in a relatively straight line. I remember saying a few years back that Pirelli lacked the know-how, technology and quality control to build F1 grade tires and was almost crucified for it lol. Vettel and Ferrari are %100 right in their case.

[TAG]

I can only imagine the shitstorm we'd be witnessing here had it been Hamilton's tires the ones to fail/explode... But it happened to someone else and so everything is fine and we can for the 347th time give Pirelli another pass.

It's happened to Hamilton in Silverstone 2013. He didn't just lose the third step on the podium, he lost the win. Why even bring Hamilton into it? Is the shitstorm Vettel and Ferrari wrought excusable because it's Vettel and Ferrari instead of Hamilton and Mercedes?

Don't get the comparison you're attempting to make.

[turbof1]

How is Pirelli supposed to know the exact tire life (for whatever setup everyone was running)? Based on the lots of testing they do?

Agreed.

It's all theoretical. Hembrey did mention it was a range of between 28 and 40 laps. It was destroyed on the 29th.

This IF run in accordance with Pirelli's recommended pressures. Which I'm inclined to believe Ferrari ran more aggressively than the recommended optimum.
So how can between 28 and 40 still hold true if the pressures and track limits aren't being respected? That figure will drop, and anyone can see that if they just choose to look.

Pirelli never predicted it would be "between 28 and 40 laps", only that it would be around 40 laps. I find in that case that the difference is too big. There are limits to invoking different conditions as a reason, and Pirelli should have given a conservative estimation from the first place anyway to ensure safety!

For the record again: A pirelli engineer was right there at Ferrari to atleast object against the strategy. I don't think that has happened.

[Tim.Wright]

Not to mention the fact that if wear was the real issue the laptimes would have dropped way off long before the tyre structurally failed.

[Moose]

Not to mention the fact that if wear was the real issue the laptimes would have dropped way off long before the tyre structurally failed.

As many have pointed out, the lap times were dropping, so much so that Vettel was getting slower despite lower fuel. So much so that the much slower Lotus on fresher tires was catching him.

Further to that, Vettel was despite his protestations, repeatedly going off track.

That said, if Pirelli predicted 40 laps, clearly they --- up in multiple ways:
1) They should never have brought tires they thought could do 40 laps to Spa - they're meant to be providing 2ish stop races, 40 lap tyres don't provide that
2) They should never have predicted 40 laps if the tire could only last 28 even at the greatest stretch.

[djos]

Check previous races, Pirelli tires usually drop 3-4 seconds per lap once worn out, Vettel's lap times are nowhere near that!

[Tim.Wright]

Come on, the laptimes were fine. The tyres should hit the cliff and be shedding 2-4-6-8 seconds a lap waaaay before they are structurley compromised.

I don't buy the running off track excuse either. Curbs, gravel, track edges and debris have been part of racing for literally more than a hundred years. If a tyre isn't built with enough resistence to these things then its not a racing tyre.

[zeph]

Curbs, gravel, track edges and debris have been part of racing for literally more than a hundred years. If a tyre isn't built with enough resistence to these things then its not a racing tyre.

And blowouts have been a part of racing for just as long. F1 is dangerous.

I'm not saying we should expect tire to explode when pushed beyond the limit. But I don't get the hysteria. This has happened before, it WILL happen again.
All in all, of the 1040 tires used this weekend, two blew, which is two more than average, but still not a ridiculous margin. I'm sure smarter folks than myself can unleash some statistical math and calculate how often a tire will fail at the rate of usage in F1.

I'm not a fan of the gumball tires, but I do think Pirelli is unfairly getting knocked for providing exactly what was asked from them.


As an aside, I marvel at tire manufacturers' ability to design a tire that will have a certain lifespan and starts to drop off gradually beyond that. It is an amazing feat of engineering.