Peak grip vs wear

[Erunanethiel]

Disregarding any warm up time;

Do tires start to lose grip from the first lap, making the first lap fastest, second lap a bit slower, third lap more so etc..

Or do they stay at the peak grip for quite a few laps and then fall rapidly?

Or do they get up to peak grip after a number of laps, then stay there for quite a few laps and then decrease in grip? If so is the fall rapid or very gradual?

[Wass85]

Disregarding any warm up time;

Do tires start to lose grip from the first lap, making the first lap fastest, second lap a bit slower, third lap more so etc..

Or do they stay at the peak grip for quite a few laps and then fall rapidly?

Or do they get up to peak grip after a number of laps, then stay there for quite a few laps and then decrease in grip? If so is the fall rapid or very gradual?

I think that will depend on the tyre but usually the softest tyre has peak grip during the first hot-lap and then it falls away.

[FW17]

[ENGINE TUNER]

Disregarding any warm up time;

Do tires start to lose grip from the first lap, making the first lap fastest, second lap a bit slower, third lap more so etc..

Or do they stay at the peak grip for quite a few laps and then fall rapidly?

Or do they get up to peak grip after a number of laps, then stay there for quite a few laps and then decrease in grip? If so is the fall rapid or very gradual?

Kimi Raikkonen set a fast lap on lap #43 if the 2005(the year where tire changes were banned)Japanese gp, a lap record that was finally beat either this year or last.

The pirelli tires are bizarre and abnormal, don't make any conclusions as to proper tire behavior based on their tires.

Tires have long been able to sustain peak grip for sustained periods of time, but pirelli are incapable of making such a tire so the foolishly came up with the concept of "thermal degradation".

[yener]

Not exactly true. The tyres in 2005 were designed/created to last a whole race. Back in the days we alvays had 2 tyre manufacturers trying to get the best tyre under the car. The tyres were produced for maximum grip and duration. Now only pirelli is left, they have been asked to create tyres which will create more actions on the track. A real difference between a hard an soft tyres. Some years the softs degraded to much, and in some seasons, softs only lasted for a couple of laps.

[Just_a_fan]

Tires have long been able to sustain peak grip for sustained periods of time, but pirelli are incapable of making such a tire so the foolishly came up with the concept of "thermal degradation".

Pirelli are making tyres that they have been asked to make - tyres that don't last in order to make the teams have multiple pit stops. They have managed to row back from that a bit now and we see tyres that can be pushed for longer.

Given a free hand, Pirelli would make tyres that lasted for ages. And then people would moan about processions again.

If the 2021 "overtaking wonder cars" deliver on the promise of Brawn et al., then maybe we can go back to tyres that last a whole race and the only pit stops are to replace punctured tyres. If no one is stopping in the ptis to change tyres, then the teams will have to make cars that can run closely, drivers will have to overtake on track.

[ENGINE TUNER]

Tires have long been able to sustain peak grip for sustained periods of time, but pirelli are incapable of making such a tire so the foolishly came up with the concept of "thermal degradation".

Pirelli are making tyres that they have been asked to make - tyres that don't last in order to make the teams have multiple pit stops. They have managed to row back from that a bit now and we see tyres that can be pushed for longer.

Given a free hand, Pirelli would make tyres that lasted for ages. And then people would moan about processions again.

If the 2021 "overtaking wonder cars" deliver on the promise of Brawn et al., then maybe we can go back to tyres that last a whole race and the only pit stops are to replace punctured tyres. If no one is stopping in the ptis to change tyres, then the teams will have to make cars that can run closely, drivers will have to overtake on track.

Pirelli were asked to make tires that would require at least 2 or 3 stops per race since before they began supplying tires(canada 2010 being the prototype). The majority of races since 2017 have been won on a 1 stop strategy, so therefore they are NOT supplying what is asked of them.

Why are 1 stop strategies the predominantly successful ones? Because pushing the pirelli tires hard gives a couple of tenths in laptime for 1 lap or so but overheats the tires and changes the properties of the tread leading to less grip.

Pirelli was never asked to produce tires that can not be pushed hard, they were asked to produce tires that had a limited mileage. But because of their inability to produce a tire that can withstand full F1 forces for a sustained period of time they purposefully incorporated "thermal degradation" into their tire as a type of fuse to protect their image from self destructing tires. Pirelli F1 tires have a weak point in the construction of where the tread is connected to the sidewall, this most apparent in Silverstone 2013 and Spa 2015, so in order to hide this weakness they purposefully make the tread incapable of absorbing more energy than the construction can withstand. They make the tire lose grip before it blows up.

The current pirelli tire can NOT withstand 5 laps being pushed to 100%, but can last over half the race being pushed at 80%, nobody ever asked for that, or thermal degradation, or a narrow working temperature range, or sky high tire pressures. No, what pirelli provide is not what was asked for, it is the best that they can do, which is not good enough for F1, because even with the more raceable cars for 2021 the tires will still be the limiting factor.