2015 Belgian Grand Prix - 21-23 August

[flat out]

Has anybody got the topspeeds? On Formel1.de it says something around 221 km/h which is obviously the sector 2 line between turns 14 and 15. Thanks

[Jef Patat]

I don't get this hysteria about the tires. Frankly, I like tires exploding. It makes me sad when it happens to guy I am rooting for and it makes be happy when it happens to the guy I dont like, overall it is fun. It is luck and unpredictable so it makes F1 more interesting. It is like rain or mechanical problems to me, part of the sport. Vettel is crying to much about it. The more predictable F1, the more boring it becomes. I think Vettel and Rosberg are wrong. Poor Pirelli getting bad PR because they did what they are asked to do. I would quit F1 if I were them.

You must be joking? What about driver's safety for example?

[Afterburner]

If a tyre almost blowing still allows that driver to defend his position against much newer tyres something isn't right, the drop sould be much higher.

[PlatinumZealot]

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.

The carcass is part of the tire and it exploded. Or didn't explode?!
I remember some cases of Bridgestones worn to canvas without exploding, that's how you make a high performance high load tire, you make it safe for racing.
Safety first, or that's what the FIA used to claim for ages.

Key word used to claim. Remember Pirrelli offered a maximum stint length which was rejected!
Any carcass will explode at that speed. I am not remembering any Bridgstone that has been down to the carcass, but it would be good is someone has any photos or videos so we can compare. The Pirrelli carcass is Kevlar or aramid IIRC. Kevlar/aramid does not stick to rubber as good as steel does. You have to use all sorts of fancy adhesives to get the rubber to hold onto the kevlar fibres.

Here is a video showing the production of the tyre. These are the hard working people that Vettel dissed. They were only providing what FIA asked them for.

[SimRacer]

delete please

[F1NAC]

Does anyone know what happened in GP3 when guess what another Pirelli delaminated?

[SimRacer]

delete please

[CriXus]

Pirelli are saying, guys we make shitty tires and that's why we are gonna impose a maximum lap per tire compound, instead of making better tires.

[sgth0mas]

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.

The carcass is part of the tire and it exploded. Or didn't explode?!
I remember some cases of Bridgestones worn to canvas without exploding, that's how you make a high performance high load tire, you make it safe for racing.
Safety first, or that's what the FIA used to claim for ages.

Key word used to claim. Remember Pirrelli offered a maximum stint length which was rejected!
Any carcass will explode at that speed. I am not remembering any Bridgstone that has been down to the carcass, but it would be good is someone has any photos or videos so we can compare. The Pirrelli carcass is Kevlar or aramid IIRC. Kevlar/aramid does not stick to rubber as good as steel does. You have to use all sorts of fancy adhesives to get the rubber to hold onto the kevlar fibres.

Here is a video showing the production of the tyre. These are the hard working people that Vettel dissed. They were only providing what FIA asked them for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG3sdF8IXyA

What were pirelli asked to produce?

[Andres125sx]

Pirelli was asked for tyres like this?

Sorry but no, Pirelli was asked for tyres that do not last the whole race, but that´s very different to tyres exploding when they´ve reached the end of lifespan.


Do you remember Alonso in Monaco 2005 when he finished with completely worn out tyres? He lost several position at the end of the race (in Monaco!) and the car had the rear light litted up because he was forced to put a rain mapping due to the total lack of traction

That´s a tyre, it was completely gone, but he managed to finish the race. Nothing exploded. It was not Spa, but Vettel´s tyre didn´t reach that point either, he was doing competitive laps


The only way to justify Pirelli is if the tyre was cutted in some kerb. Otherwise it´s simply a crappy tyre.... actually even if the kerb cut it...

[sgth0mas]

Also, zealot, you must not remember that pirelli switchef FROM steel TO aramid in 2013 because the steel exhibited wild delamination.

What technical basis do you even have to make comments on the aramid vs steel adhesion? Are you seriously just making this stuff up or repeating other people who have made this stuff up?

[knabbel]

Pirelli was asked for tyres like this?

The only way to justify Pirelli is if the tyre was cutted in some kerb. Otherwise it´s simply a crappy tyre.... actually even if the kerb cut it...

I totally agree with this. If this happened in the middle of Raidillon then we had a really big crash

[Edax]

I think some of the statements are way too early:
- It could have been a production error of Pirelli.
- It could have been a puncture. The kerb Vettel crossed was where Maldonado damaged his car. So there could have been some debris.
- The prediction Ferrari (and likely pirelli) made was based on the behavior of the tires in practice and the first stint. As Hamilton noted over the radio the behavior of the track changed significantly over the course of the race. Track temperatures dropped quite a bit. This can affect tire temperatures, pressures and wear.

There are a number of possibilities which only can be resolved through an investigation. And even then, tire failures are not always predictable or preventable.

Anyway. I think we have seen an entertaining race. It could have done with a bit of rain, and of course it is disappointing for Vettel. But overall we have seen plenty of overtakes good strategy, and clean fighting. I am especially happy for Grosjean and Perez as well as as their teams as they needed a boost. And of course the overtake of Verstappen, wow, just wow.

Perhaps we should leave it at that.

[basti313]

Key word used to claim. Remember Pirrelli offered a maximum stint length which was rejected!

Thank god it was rejected. How stupid would this be? We had this in DTM and it was awful...

Any carcass will explode at that speed. I am not remembering any Bridgstone that has been down to the carcass, but it would be good is someone has any photos or videos so we can compare.

Ok, I can understand that you can not remember your beloved one loosing his WC in the gravel with tires worn to the carcass.

There are more than enough good examples how it should be (Ham in gavel China 2007, Rai and Vet 2012 in China (low speed track?)) and how it should not be (Silverstone 2013, Spa 2015).

Poor Pirelli workers...

[henra]

Sorry but no, Pirelli was asked for tyres that do not last the whole race, but that´s very different to tyres exploding when they´ve reached the end of lifespan.

Indeed. And I'm sure they are quite aware of that now, as well. I guess they were not aware of the problem that occured to Seb, and it was not planned either . Possibly the massive temperature variations due to the long fast turns with high sustained g loads followed by long straights caused additional stress between the carcasse and the rubber amd caused the bond between them to let go prematurely. On other circuits there was always a huge drop off before any delamination.
To me it seems both, Ferrari and Pirelli fell victim to this potentially Spa specific problem. That is simply the way accidents happen.
I can somehow understand Seb being angry and at the same time being concerned that there is no really reliable warning prior to a tyre exploding (yes it was a risky strategy but they surely expected the risk being hitting the cliff and losing one ore two places rather than risk hitting a wall at 200mph - which fortunately didn't happen) but I can also see how Pirelli was caught by surprise about this behaviour as well.
Edit: The various requests of FIA and the Teams about how the tyre should degrade and behave might have contributed to this specific problem. Any additional restriction influencing a design causes additional risks of unwanted side effects.