2020 F1 Regs Changes

[MtthsMlw]

2019 tyres will be used again for next season

[bauc]

I see this as a good news, a lot of the teams struggled with the tyres this year

[Holm86]

To me it just seems like Pirelli is not up to the task. This years tires were bad, and if what they had in mind for 2020 was even worse, its a big problem.

[Just_a_fan]

I'd say the teams just don't want to learn new tyres for one year when they really want to have spare capacity focused on the 2021 regulations.

I'm waiting for the "FIA/Pirelli helping Mercedes again" conspiracy hypotheses to begin...

[godlameroso]

I see this as a good news, a lot of the teams struggled with the tyres this year

With a year of experience, and the ability to design the car around the tires and their working windows which are now well known, a lot of teams have a chance to gain serious pace. The difference in working the tires properly can be as high as half a second. Every year Pirelli have switched tires, every year teams have had a bit of a tire lottery. Sometimes the Pirellis agree with your chassis and sometimes they do not. Sometimes your chassis agrees with the tires on certain tracks sometimes they don't.

Now with all the data and machine learning these teams have at their disposal, I'm sure they can improve the suspension kinematics to work the tires better. They can manage the airflow around the tires better because of better models regarding tire deflection under loads. There is scope for both the field to converge and make the outcomes less predictable, and in such a tight battle, gaining a tenth can make a big difference to the pecking order.

[falonso81]

Why don't we have another tyre manufacturer yet? Pirelli had it's chances all these years and they failed in my opinion. Miss the tyre war years.

[bauc]

I see this as a good news, a lot of the teams struggled with the tyres this year

With a year of experience, and the ability to design the car around the tires and their working windows which are now well known, a lot of teams have a chance to gain serious pace. The difference in working the tires properly can be as high as half a second. Every year Pirelli have switched tires, every year teams have had a bit of a tire lottery. Sometimes the Pirellis agree with your chassis and sometimes they do not. Sometimes your chassis agrees with the tires on certain tracks sometimes they don't.

Now with all the data and machine learning these teams have at their disposal, I'm sure they can improve the suspension kinematics to work the tires better. They can manage the airflow around the tires better because of better models regarding tire deflection under loads. There is scope for both the field to converge and make the outcomes less predictable, and in such a tight battle, gaining a tenth can make a big difference to the pecking order.

Agreed

[Edax]

To me it just seems like Pirelli is not up to the task. This years tires were bad, and if what they had in mind for 2020 was even worse, its a big problem.

I am not sure that we can blame Pirelli.

What I suspect is happening, (and that is a bit speculation on my part) is that the problem is in the nature of the material. Pirelli designs the tires around a certain operation window, a temperature range in which the elastic modulus is more or less constant.

However I suspect that you can gain substantial performance if you bring the surface of the tire just to the edge of the rubbery range where it starts to drop off to becoming viscous. You can see that the top teams are working a lot with thermal camera’s, thermal conditioning in the rims etc. The game then becomes who can bring the tires the closest to the edge of the operating window.

For a midfield team this is not an option, because they are usually in traffic and/or fighting so they need to keep a margin to account for thermal variations. The front runners can bring it right up to the sweet spot. However that leaves zero margin, whereas a Force india can follow another car comfortably for half a race, a mercedes will eat its tires following a competitor within 2 seconds for a single lap.

Materialwise the only thing I could think off is to make the temperature limit as sharp and steep as possible to discourage people from going there. Perhaps that is what Pirelli did, but it only means that the top teams run them closer to destruction instead of taking more margin. And when we see blisters we question the tires not the user, apart from that this kind of tire behavior can be dangerous.

It is true that we do not see this with other tires and other classes, but I suspect that F1 is the only class where you have the budget and the creative resources to even think about exploiting these kind of avenues, which probably exist for all tires.

[Sevach]

I'd say the teams just don't want to learn new tyres for one year when they really want to have spare capacity focused on the 2021 regulations.

I'm waiting for the "FIA/Pirelli helping Mercedes again" conspiracy hypotheses to begin...

Tough when everyone voted for it.

I do hope they don't play so safe with pressures in 2020.

[AMG.Tzan]

Don't you think that keeping the tires the same as 2019 will be better for competition? Teams already know how they work and won't have to learn them all over again in testing! And i think 2019 tires were just what F1 was asking for...not so much graining , drivers better able to attack without losing much on the tire front! Why change them? 2021 is really close after all...

Something tells me that 2020 will be a really close battle everywhere...Top 3 and midfield! We'll see what Mercedes has up their sleeve though...

[Xwang]

Don't you think that keeping the tires the same as 2019 will be better for competition? Teams already know how they work and won't have to learn them all over again in testing! And i think 2019 tires were just what F1 was asking for...not so much graining , drivers better able to attack without losing much on the tire front! Why change them? 2021 is really close after all...

Something tells me that 2020 will be a really close battle everywhere...Top 3 and midfield! We'll see what Mercedes has up their sleeve though...

I think that it should be better, but if Pirelli starts modifying for the same GP respect to last year the minimum pressure, camber and selected compounds, I suppose that what was learned about the usage of tyres may be not so much useful.

[NathanOlder]

Just let the teams run what pressure and camber they want. If they run too much camber or too low pressure and have a failure then its on the team and that team suffer with the DNF.

[Xwang]

I agree with you.
If Pirelli wants to protect itself, it should design its F1 tyres (from 2021 onwards) so that they do not give their best performance when used outside their design range so that F1 teams will not abuse them even if no prescription is made on minimum pressure, camber angle and so on.
I do not know how difficult it is to do that and, if not possible, Pirelli should extend the design range (I'm referring to the set of conditions in which the tyre can be used safely without exploding blistering and so on) so that it is impractical for teams to go searching for optimal performance outside the safety range in any case.
The only prescription that I accept is the one that oblige the teams to run the tyre according to its direction (if the tyre is directional).

[Tzk]

Just let the teams run what pressure and camber they want. If they run too much camber or too low pressure and have a failure then its on the team and that team suffer with the DNF.

I'm not sure if this will backfire on Pirelli. People will probably just think that the tyres are crap instead of questioning the teams setup and tyre usage... Also Pirelli has to state limits, else it'll probably kill a driver sooner or later when a tyre fails.

[NathanOlder]

Just let the teams run what pressure and camber they want. If they run too much camber or too low pressure and have a failure then its on the team and that team suffer with the DNF.

I'm not sure if this will backfire on Pirelli. People will probably just think that the tyres are crap instead of questioning the teams setup and tyre usage... Also Pirelli has to state limits, else it'll probably kill a driver sooner or later when a tyre fails.

To counter that, Pirelli announce at the beginning of each race weekend the recommend tyre camber and pressures. The teams then have to publish what they do with their tyres. If they are not in the recommend windows, then its on the team.

Forcing the teams to do something, that can then fail, is surely worse?