2018 Mexico Grand Prix - Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, 26-28 October

[zac510]

I would say, give them tyres so they can push all the time but in todays formula where they need to conserve engine for mpre races, limited fuel (fuel savings)... put Hypersoft on every circuit

Exactly, why can't Pirelli just make a tyre that never wears when subject to friction, doesn't change elasticity when heat is applied to it, yet offers grip on a downforce-loaded racing car?
What are these incompetents at Pirelli doing?

[GPR-A]

But what I don't get is - people complain when there's 1 stop races and people complain when the tires degrade? Doesn't seem to me like there's a happy middle ground!!! We as fans need to come to an agreement what we want.

There are 3 key factors that have "destroyed/robbed us" of great racing.
1. Aero - Increased turbulent wake that induces increased understeer to the following car, as the following car has ever increasing dependency on the complex aerodynamics at the front of the car.

2. Tyres - The stupidity of trying to create high degrading tyres to create racing has lead to teams burning 100s of millions of dollars in understanding the tyres and building complex solution to help them in better managing tyre life.
- Drivers have to back off from constant attack as turbulent wake destroys tyres.
- Make everlasting tyres and make it mandatory to use all 3 compounds in races! Pirelli anyway brings 3 compounds to the races. Stop making tyres a rocket science.

3. Limited PUs - It has not served anyone's purpose. Too much of conservatism on PU components has destroyed the show. FIA to benchmark PU performance and allow the weaker PU manufacturers to catch up until the difference is around 5% between different PUs, until then freeze the top performing PUs. Once the weaker manufacturers catch up, then freeze the development, which reduces the R&D and manufacturing costs and then allow as many PUs as a team wants to use.

Smaller teams have never made significant contribution to F1 ever. So, don't waste energy on trying to help them to make the playing field even for them. Let them go and then allow the bigger teams to run an extra car.

[Sierra117]

I guess the only way would be to have a tyre that is resistant to degradation but wears as well. Let's say Pirelli achieves that (makes me think of the Bridgestones years back) but teams will eventually find a way to make their car suit the tyre, which means we need a mandatory number of stops. This will hopefully mean that tyres become like any other constant (engine, turbo, etc.) that here and there might go bad (e.g. puncture, lock up leading to flat spot), which is good. Meaning drivers can push as much as possible knowing that there's an expected rate of wear (as aforementioned it would be a negligible amount) and only mistakes would lead to sudden unexpected stops. But on the flip side that might cause the gap between the best and worst cars to get larger. So we're left with the obvious fact that as long as there are tyres that are nothing short of solid rock, we'll see teams almost always managing them by going slower than they can. Perhaps then the only thing to counteract this is to have 3-4 mandatory stops, so the pitcrew's performance becomes more important and can change the gaps. But then might as well stop racing with cars constantly pitting ...

I dunno, I think I'm all right with how it is now. Teams try to figure out tyres and in any given environment, it can either be a breeze for the team or a nightmare. It's interesting as every team has a challenge with the tyres unique to their car and setup. I'm good with it.

I still think the real issue is the dirty air wake of the cars with the aero so far. I'm pretty sure we'll see an improvement next season if the rules have simplified the FW design enough and it looks like it should be all right.

[digitalrurouni]

But what I don't get is - people complain when there's 1 stop races and people complain when the tires degrade? Doesn't seem to me like there's a happy middle ground!!! We as fans need to come to an agreement what we want.

There are 3 key factors that have "destroyed/robbed us" of great racing.
1. Aero - Increased turbulent wake that induces increased understeer to the following car, as the following car has ever increasing dependency on the complex aerodynamics at the front of the car.

2. Tyres - The stupidity of trying to create high degrading tyres to create racing has lead to teams burning 100s of millions of dollars in understanding the tyres and building complex solution to help them in better managing tyre life.
- Drivers have to back off from constant attack as turbulent wake destroys tyres.
- Make everlasting tyres and make it mandatory to use all 3 compounds in races! Pirelli anyway brings 3 compounds to the races. Stop making tyres a rocket science.

3. Limited PUs - It has not served anyone's purpose. Too much of conservatism on PU components has destroyed the show. FIA to benchmark PU performance and allow the weaker PU manufacturers to catch up until the difference is around 5% between different PUs, until then freeze the top performing PUs. Once the weaker manufacturers catch up, then freeze the development, which reduces the R&D and manufacturing costs and then allow as many PUs as a team wants to use.

Smaller teams have never made significant contribution to F1 ever. So, don't waste energy on trying to help them to make the playing field even for them. Let them go and then allow the bigger teams to run an extra car.

You bring up great points. I agree #1 is a problem. #2 is also a problem but I am not sure if requiring mandatory all 3 compounds to be used is a good solution though I would think maybe it's worth a shot and seeing how it goes. Definitely agree on #3. I was harping on that since they introduced the 3 x PU limit for the season. I don't think it saves on costs cause the R&D needed to achieve that will result in heavier cars, and more expense. And of course like you said poorer racing because people just keep turning the damn things down. Great post.

[GPR-A]

You bring up great points. I agree #1 is a problem. #2 is also a problem but I am not sure if requiring mandatory all 3 compounds to be used is a good solution though I would think maybe it's worth a shot and seeing how it goes. Definitely agree on #3. I was harping on that since they introduced the 3 x PU limit for the season. I don't think it saves on costs cause the R&D needed to achieve that will result in heavier cars, and more expense. And of course like you said poorer racing because people just keep turning the damn things down. Great post.

Mandating 3 compounds in race ensures there would definitely be 2 stops in the races. That means, there would be opportunity to varying strategies and the Safety Car impact would be larger. When the two stops become mandatory, then there is no premium on saving tyres, which means the teams have to get as much performance as they can within a smaller window. You would then NOT have leading cars running conservatively for like 30-40 laps.

Critically also, Pirelli should manufacture tyres that leaves no marbles on track. Regardless of how broad the tracks are, the moment there are marbles, drivers avoid going on marbles as it takes away grip and at times, can cause spins.

[zac510]

Critically also, Pirelli should manufacture tyres that leaves no marbles on track. Regardless of how broad the tracks are, the moment there are marbles, drivers avoid going on marbles as it takes away grip and at times, can cause spins.

The current Pirelli tyres are pretty good on that point actually. I was watching Barcelona 2012 on Classic F1 just last night and there was a proper goat track (as Brundle put it), we haven't seen anything like that in the last few seasons. Conversely as I was walking Suzuka last month there were hardly any marbles to be found.

[sosic2121]

Any opinions on Vettel's 2nd pitstop?
In my opinion it was a mistake.
Not only they lost any chance of victory, but they would also probably loose 2nd place without Ricciardo's unlucky retirement.

[Wynters]

***Removed off topic comments***

[GPR-A]

Everlasting tyres and mandatory two stops? Expect everyone to run the fastest tyre for the entire race save for the third last lap (when they'll pit). And the second last lap (when they'll pit again).

So be it! Better than grandma driving. What you said could have happened last year also, but it hasn't! Because of highly durable tyres of last year, the Hypersoft was introduced for this year! What has that served? See what happened in the opening stint of Singapore?

The only way to get overtaking is to have faster cars behind slower ones. Given a sniff of data, all the top teams will focus in on the same strategy so you'll have processional racing only made 'exciting' due to mistakes, as we see now. So you either need to increase mistakes (lottery winner), artifically put faster cars behind slower ones (who will let them through so as not to compromise their race against the other people at their level) or artifically increase/decrease the speeds of cars (just like a computer game and 'rubber banding').

The idea of somehow putting the faster car behind, is just ludicrous. I don't think the people who understand racing, wants overtakes that are pointless. The idea of racing is where there are no holds barred dog chase between two or multiple cars, whether it results in an overtake or not is of lesser importance. Today, bad aero, conserving PU, conserving tyres and what not, has limited the dog chase. Nobody wants to see dozens of pointless overtakes.

There is no joy in watching a Mercedes, a Ferrari or a Red Bull breezing past the entire field ONLY to then give up when they reach the race leaders because, despite having almost equal cars, they can't fight as the turbulent wake makes following difficult, destroys tyres and in a such scenario, punishing a PU is pointless, so back off.

So a six car, Ferrari/Merc championship? Riveting. I bet audiences will be queuing up!

I do find the idea that Williams has never made a contribution hilarious though. I guess McLaren haven't either.

Don't get lost by creating a self conceived web of thoughts. I said "smaller teams", not current back markers. Smaller teams meaning, people who barely meet ends just to be on the grid.

Past glory doesn't serve anyone. Does anyone want to see Mike Tyson still fighting? Well, if someone can inject some kind of steroids that can take him to his 20s, then yeah absolutely! That is what Williams needs, but otherwise, they represent the current state of Mike Tyson.

McLaren has all the funding they need, but doesn't seem to have managed to create a winning product. They are a painful representation of Honda, BMW and Toyota of 2000s.

You can't compromise the quality of F1 for the sake of keeping afloat Sauber, Haas and FIs. Caterham and Marussia existed with the belief that, somehow the F1 spending would get down to 50 million and they can compete. They are gone and no one is missing them.

I am sure the F1 world would be a great place if there are 6 top drivers battling for the championship in equally matched cars, regardless of whether those cars belong to 2 teams or 3. Tight competition is what is needed, not the mess of blue flags! Not to mention the apathy of low quality drivers with big pockets that make way in these cash crunch teams to spoil the show. What an eye sore.

[drunkf1fan]

Any opinions on Vettel's 2nd pitstop?
In my opinion it was a mistake.
Not only they lost any chance of victory, but they would also probably loose 2nd place without Ricciardo's unlucky retirement.

He had literally zero chance at Verstappen before the pitstop, he was pushing and Verstappen was cruising. Vettel's left front looked like it was about to undo it's own wheel nut, jump over the halo and start beating Vettel in the head till he stopped the car because of the abuse Vettel had inflicted on it. IT's quite amazing that a left front looking that poor really didn't effect his lap times almost at all. Seemed to be almost all about rear not sliding out in corners and traction to get the speed down. But if that left front actually went then his race is over and frankly how bad it looked I think there was a real chance of that.

As it was, Ricciardo was getting a huge amount of defensive help in that almost every time Vettel got to be in DRS Ricciardo also had slipstream and DRS for most of the straight. With the way Vettel closed down a minor error in S2 a lap or two before the failure I think Vettel was getting 2nd the first time they had a 2-3 lap window without backmarkers, one lap to get really close, second lap to pass him.

Ferrari took the safe option to make sure he finished and make sure he didn't have a tire failure and was the right call. Sure they needed the win for the WDC, but they needed the finish for the WCC and made absolutely the right call.

[drunkf1fan]

But what I don't get is - people complain when there's 1 stop races and people complain when the tires degrade? Doesn't seem to me like there's a happy middle ground!!! We as fans need to come to an agreement what we want.

Because they didn't degrade, they literally didn't work for ~80% of the cars. If Ham pushed harder and was faster and in doing so used up his tires faster, that is degradation we want. What we had was everyone but RBR and Ferrari completely unable to push at all AND their tires wore out much faster than those two teams.

Graining isn't a sign of good wear, neither is blistering. When most cars aren't able to push hard or get the tires working well, that isn't just two cars with good deg and the rest with bad deg, it was just a completely worthless race.

Hulk in the US was 1 second off the lap times of the winner, in Mexico he was 3 seconds off and he was the fastest of the 'rest'. They didnt' go so fast their tires wore out faster, again the tires literally did not work. Graining because the tires slide around the corner because they don't work was absolutely terrible for the race.

[Wynters]

***Removed off topic comments***

[sosic2121]

Any opinions on Vettel's 2nd pitstop?
In my opinion it was a mistake.
Not only they lost any chance of victory, but they would also probably loose 2nd place without Ricciardo's unlucky retirement.

He had literally zero chance at Verstappen before the pitstop, he was pushing and Verstappen was cruising. Vettel's left front looked like it was about to undo it's own wheel nut, jump over the halo and start beating Vettel in the head till he stopped the car because of the abuse Vettel had inflicted on it. IT's quite amazing that a left front looking that poor really didn't effect his lap times almost at all. Seemed to be almost all about rear not sliding out in corners and traction to get the speed down. But if that left front actually went then his race is over and frankly how bad it looked I think there was a real chance of that.

As it was, Ricciardo was getting a huge amount of defensive help in that almost every time Vettel got to be in DRS Ricciardo also had slipstream and DRS for most of the straight. With the way Vettel closed down a minor error in S2 a lap or two before the failure I think Vettel was getting 2nd the first time they had a 2-3 lap window without backmarkers, one lap to get really close, second lap to pass him.

Ferrari took the safe option to make sure he finished and make sure he didn't have a tire failure and was the right call. Sure they needed the win for the WDC, but they needed the finish for the WCC and made absolutely the right call.

Vettel was fastest man on the track at that moment. He was gaining 7 tents on Max, and his tires were 4 laps younger(although probably used harder).
Many drivers have dane 50+ laps on SS, including Kimi.
Maybe the worst of all, for last 24 laps he switched on set of used US, (in his first stint he barely managed 17 laps on US) which allowed Max to put on set of shiny brand new SS tires(by far the best race tire).
When Ricciardo retired Vettel already done 13 laps on his used tires, so it's really hard to believe he had a pace advantage to overtake him.
Only downside to one stop was risk of puncture, which AFAIK didn't happen to anyone that day.

I strongly believe that victory was on the table and that they should have left him on the track until his times dropped off.

Edit: According to JA blog his US tires were not used.

[NL_Fer]

I suggest to increase the working temp of the tyres. That way the drivers need to keep pushing them, to keep them in the correct temp range.

[sosic2121]

I suggest to increase the working temp of the tyres. That way the drivers need to keep pushing them, to keep them in the correct temp range.

Then only the best teams could switch them on, widening the gap even further.