Scuderia Ferrari SF90

[keroro.90]

Guys.. remember last year only for 4 races specifically pirelli brought something of a 0.4mm gauge tyres on grounds of blistering after the request made by Mercs post pre-season testing and those 4 races Ferrari struggled like hell with it.. (barcelone, french gp.. rest i dont rem) and the Mercs suited those tyres soo well that the french and spainish GPs they walked the park.

This year 2019 the whole spec of tyres have been similar to the 0.4mm concept of the last year. Hence we see Ferrari struggling to even get grip from the tyres. The surprise is a team like Redbull who r tyre and aero geniuses also are finding it very hard this year.

And the only team doing well on these tyres all the way is Mercs. Just saying. Food for thought.

Yes, I think they are still struggling in understanding completely the 0.4mm tyres.
Last year Barcelona was a drama, French a bit better and then in Silverstone they won.
However, all these tracks are pretty aggressive on tyres, so there are no problems in putting the tyres in the right temperature.

[zac510]

i think the interview is more a message to Pirelli "that every year makes the tires according some team request more than others", just guessing

Also, every year Pirelli claims that they widen the tire window and every year turns out to be as narrow and as problematic as the year before. And this is true for every team (in particular for Ferrari this year).

This seems to be a vague use of language by both Ferrari and Pirelli. I believe Pirelli when they say they widened the window, but I also believe that the teams create for themselves a much smaller window in which they want to operate the tyre, to extract an even higher peak of performance (because performance is not linear across the temp window). In short, I don't think that the teams and Pirelli are talking about the same tyre temperature window when they talk about tyres. Ferrari might have run the tyres in the 2019 temp window, by Pirelli's definition, perfectly all race, but Ferrari were targetting an even narrower window and then complained when they couldn't hit it.

Only Pirelli will release data on which temperature window the tyres can run in, so we get a situation where we can't compare one statement about tyres directly to another because a crucial piece of information is missing (the information from the teams).

[PhillipM]

The other issue is with the thinner tread tyres your surface temps change a lot more actually through the lap - you might be loosing too much heat on a straight between corners, etc, even if the bulk temperatures are good.

[santos]

The floor looks like it's made of wood.

[Jolle]

https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 249-28.jpg

The floor looks like it's made of wood.

funny that on the radio they wouldn't say "you're right floor is missing" instead they went for "some damage", "right a more then left"

[santos]

https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 249-28.jpg

The floor looks like it's made of wood.

funny that on the radio they wouldn't say "you're right floor is missing" instead they went for "some damage", "right a more then left"

Guess they opt to have that kind of messages to not influence the driver how he is feeling the balance of the car. But in this case, "some damage" was really fun to hear.

[zibby43]

Guys.. remember last year only for 4 races specifically pirelli brought something of a 0.4mm gauge tyres on grounds of blistering after the request made by Mercs post pre-season testing and those 4 races Ferrari struggled like hell with it.. (barcelone, french gp.. rest i dont rem) and the Mercs suited those tyres soo well that the french and spainish GPs they walked the park.

This year 2019 the whole spec of tyres have been similar to the 0.4mm concept of the last year. Hence we see Ferrari struggling to even get grip from the tyres. The surprise is a team like Redbull who r tyre and aero geniuses also are finding it very hard this year.

And the only team doing well on these tyres all the way is Mercs. Just saying. Food for thought.

Going to have to disagree with every one one of those statements.

The thinner-gauge tires were brought to Silverstone last year, and Ferrari were extremely quick there, quicker than the Mercs. They had no trouble with the thinner tires there.

There was one race in Spain (the first race for the "new" tires), where Ferrari were terrible, and then the Pirelli conspiracy theory nonsense began, despite Vettel later admitting that they would have been worse off with the regular tires in Spain. Ferrari struggled like hell with blistering on the regular tires last year.

Sebastian Vettel on the thinner-gauge tire, explaining how Ferrari would've suffered blistering without the "old" tires:

• However, after logging 136 laps in post-Spanish GP testing on Tuesday, during which he trialed both the standard and the thinner-tread tyre specifications, Vettel conceded Ferrari would've struggled even more without the change.
  
  “I think it's pretty straightforward,” he said. “Obviously normally you don't get the chance to revisit this kind of decisions that are made, but I think we did now with the day that we had today, and I think the result is that, if we had the normal tyres on Sunday, we'd probably even be worse off."
  
  “So I think it was the correct call, and it was our fault not to have the same tyre wear or life as other people.”

Source: https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/vette ... 7/3091937/

Finally, here is how Ferrari coped with the regular tires during the in-season test last year:

[keroro.90]

Guys.. remember last year only for 4 races specifically pirelli brought something of a 0.4mm gauge tyres on grounds of blistering after the request made by Mercs post pre-season testing and those 4 races Ferrari struggled like hell with it.. (barcelone, french gp.. rest i dont rem) and the Mercs suited those tyres soo well that the french and spainish GPs they walked the park.

This year 2019 the whole spec of tyres have been similar to the 0.4mm concept of the last year. Hence we see Ferrari struggling to even get grip from the tyres. The surprise is a team like Redbull who r tyre and aero geniuses also are finding it very hard this year.

And the only team doing well on these tyres all the way is Mercs. Just saying. Food for thought.

Going to have to disagree with every one one of those statements.

The thinner-gauge tires were brought to Silverstone last year, and Ferrari were extremely quick there, quicker than the Mercs. They had no trouble with the thinner tires there.

There was one race in Spain (the first race for the "new" tires), where Ferrari were terrible, and then the Pirelli conspiracy theory nonsense began, despite Vettel later admitting that they would have been worse off with the regular tires in Spain. Ferrari struggled like hell with blistering on the regular tires last year.

Sebastian Vettel on the thinner-gauge tire, explaining how Ferrari would've suffered blistering without the "old" tires:

• However, after logging 136 laps in post-Spanish GP testing on Tuesday, during which he trialed both the standard and the thinner-tread tyre specifications, Vettel conceded Ferrari would've struggled even more without the change.
  
  “I think it's pretty straightforward,” he said. “Obviously normally you don't get the chance to revisit this kind of decisions that are made, but I think we did now with the day that we had today, and I think the result is that, if we had the normal tyres on Sunday, we'd probably even be worse off."
  
  “So I think it was the correct call, and it was our fault not to have the same tyre wear or life as other people.”

Source: https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/vette ... 7/3091937/

Finally, here is how Ferrari coped with the regular tires during the in-season test last year:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5SiVT7XkAA-OK8.jpg

No doubts about this.
However, I believe that since these tyres (0.4mm) were used in high-energy circuits (circuits with a remarkable stress on the tyres). The problem of the tyre warm-up could have been partially mitigated.
By opposite this year using these tyres also in low-energy circuits this problem is amplified.

[zibby43]

No doubts about this.
However, I believe that since these tyres (0.4mm) were used in high-energy circuits (circuits with a remarkable stress on the tyres). The problem of the tyre warm-up could have been partially mitigated.
By opposite this year using these tyres also in low-energy circuits this problem is amplified.

100% agree that those 3 circuits (the only 3 the tires were used at - Barcelona, Paul Ricard, and Silverstone) are high-energy circuits.

All 3 circuits were also re-surfaced prior to their respective races last year.

As a side note, I'm not disputing that Ferrari have had some struggles with the tires this year (even Mercedes were struggling with the softest compounds around a place like Monaco). I simply don't believe that the tire performance/management is the determinant factor right now. It's one factor. They also seem to be down a bit on downforce and mechanical grip.

Without addressing Mercedes too much, as the season has developed, it has become clearer that Ferrari's advantage on the straights is not solely down to PU performance. The Ferrari is very efficient at the cost of some cornering performance.

[hape]

The thing is, like some say before, the thinner gauge Pirelli tyres seem to have a negative performance effect on the aero efficient, low downforce, Ferrari car were as it seems to have a positive performance effect on the Mercedes. That could explain the huge performance difference between this years cars in low speed corners.
This difference will then not be cured in short term I guess, as the only way to solve the puzzle is to find more downforce with the chosen aero philosophy.
Even Red Bull who mastered last years tyres perfectly towards the end of the season are now struggling big time.

[Alexf1]

Haven't Pirell also made the structure of the 2019 tyres harder compared to 2018? I guess this is where most teams struggle with this year except Mercs tank

[siskue2005]

Haven't Pirell also made the structure of the 2019 tyres harder compared to 2018? I guess this is where most teams struggle with this year except Mercs tank

The mercs are also suffering to warm up the tyres, Lewis has been struggling in qualifying because of that (listen to his interview with Anthony Davidson after Monaco qualy)... the only one doesn't have such issues is Bottas.

But surely merc have less problem compared to other teams

[stez90]

https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 249-28.jpg

The floor looks like it's made of wood.

The Nomex honeycomb core has that same color.

[izzy]

Haven't Pirell also made the structure of the 2019 tyres harder compared to 2018? I guess this is where most teams struggle with this year except Mercs tank

yes exactly, Pirelli changed the structure, to cope with more downforce from the bigger wings plus the massive development race this year. they left the tread thin to avoid blistering and also at the same time make them more affected by wear, for more pitstops.

so now cars have to warm up the carcass with load, without melting the surface. one thing was that at the race last year before the tyre test, Mercedes apparently ran with extra tyre sensors, that then they were allowed to do the tyre test with! if that's true then it must've helped steer them to their high front downforce concept, that they were rather late with...

[Just_a_fan]

one thing was that at the race last year before the tyre test, Mercedes apparently ran with extra tyre sensors, that then they were allowed to do the tyre test with! if that's true then it must've helped steer them to their high front downforce concept, that they were rather late with...

Yes - they read the rules and made use of what those rules allowed them to do. That's just clever thinking.