Immediately blaming the tyres...

[JordanMugen]

I have no problems with Pirellie tyres since 2013.

No f1 tyre before Pirelli has ever experienced these levels of car weight and downforce. It is not an easy achievement they have done to get the pace and the degradation characterics set by the Formula 1.

You don't suppose they are too finicky and need too much management? Why should junior drivers have to train in FIA Formula 3 and FIA Formula 2 (sometimes for years) just so they know how to drive on Pirelli tyres?

The notion of special wheel rims just to manage tyre temperature seems unprecedented...

[PlatinumZealot]

I have no problems with Pirellie tyres since 2013.

No f1 tyre before Pirelli has ever experienced these levels of car weight and downforce. It is not an easy achievement they have done to get the pace and the degradation characterics set by the Formula 1.

You don't suppose they are too finicky and need too much management? Why should junior drivers have to train in FIA Formula 3 and FIA Formula 2 (sometimes for years) just so they know how to drive on Pirelli tyres?

The notion of special wheel rims just to manage tyre temperature seems unprecedented...
https://d2d0b2rxqzh1q5.cloudfront.net/s ... 918406.jpg

Thats just how advanced things are these days. Everything is a science. In schumacher's time Bridgestone did all of the work to make custom tyres for him. In V8 Era the Bridgestones were just made to be crazy fast in all conditions. Fuel load was the limiting factor. Pirellis are "designed to degrade" to help the show. F1 teams tyre performance engineer's main job is to fight this degradation.

[Deadpool]

Maybe in fact Pirelli's engineers should determine when which car should go to the pit stop, how many laps they can go with one set of tires, and it would be best to limit the speed in corners (sarcasm). "No,no, you silly boy, you can't drive at full throttle on that strait and try to overtake,debris are waiting in ambush and they'll catch you ..."

[Stu]

Maybe in fact Pirelli's engineers should determine when which car should go to the pit stop, how many laps they can go with one set of tires, and it would be best to limit the speed in corners (sarcasm). "No,no, you silly boy, you can't drive at full throttle on that strait and try to overtake,debris are waiting in ambush and they'll catch you ..."

But that is exactly what the fuel use regs ‘encourage’ the teams to do. So the teams use multiple sensors (and sensor types) to ensure maximum knife-edge tyre performance (because that is where they prefer to extract lap-time from). If you ride on a knife-edge, occasionally you fall off (driver error, damage, hit ‘that’ kerb too often, etc, etc), this makes it easy to blame the tyres.

Tyres are a part of the issue that F1 has, but the teams ultimately control how they extract pace and lap-time from the car. They could brim the fuel, but that loses them time (although it would allow less lift/coast). Weight and aero are the biggest issues for the tyres as that determines the normal loading that they see.

[Andres125sx]

Arguably, that isn't as easy as one would think. Think about it; they aren't asked to make the most durable tire, they were asked to design a tire that only lasts a number of laps and then have a cliff. This is contra to what Bridgestone or any other tire manufacturer was ever asked of doing.

In other words, we want tires to have a limited tire life, but at the same time we also want them to be indestructible when going over that limit. Sounds pretty contradictory to me.

No it´s not contradictory at all. This is how tires should behave and look when going over the limit



And this is how Pirelli tires look when going over the limit




About the debris, sorry but I don´t believe in coincidences, so Hamilton, Bottas and Sainz, all of them went over debris with exact same tire (front left)? Sorry but I can´t believe that, specially when exploding tires is far from a new problem for Pirelli

[gibells]

DAS, anyone? Do we know how much toe angle the car runs with DAS pulled in? How much that has effectively abraided the surface of the tire. Doesnt the fact that the 2 Mercs failed at the same time, point to something they're doing on their car?

[henry]

From the look of the tyres the failure was a result of fatigue, not wear. When negotiating corners like Copse the tyres are cycling track forces around the tyre at about 35 Hz. On the straights the downforce is cycling the tyre vertically at an average of about 30Hz. The more downforce a car has the higher the fatigue deflection cycles. Once downforce is set main controls to alleviate this are speed and tyre pressure. Mercedes could have reduced their pace to that Red Bull and been safer, but their drivers were racing.

The Teams chose this situation. Notice they’ve stopped complaining about tyre pressures. This coming weekend they’re likely to be higher.

[NL_Fer]

Maybe the Bridgestone tyres were stronger. But is hard to compare.

These cars are heavier
The powerunit has more torque
The suspension allows for higher cornerspeed.
A stint has to last till the tyre wears, instead of an empty fueltank.

Don’t underestimate the forces and thermal wear these tyres are handling.

[henry]

I did some rough forces, I used Hamilton’s Q3 lap so these would be lower in the race

Assuming Copse taken at 4G, car 760kg, in speed 313kph, out speed 297kph

Loads on front left
vertical force 7000N. ( 1600lbf)
Transverse force 11000N (2600lbf)
Drag force 500N (100lbf)

(Drag power around 40kW)


Similar numbers for the other 2 high speed corners

[Big Tea]

Could they possibly inbed a white layer that would show through at a ware point and the driver be advised to pit when it becomes visible? The option of carry on at your peril would pass the 'blame' to the team if they do not chose to.

[henry]

Could they possibly inbed a white layer that would show through at a ware point and the driver be advised to pit when it becomes visible? The option of carry on at your peril would pass the 'blame' to the team if they do not chose to.

I don’t think that would help in the Silverstone case. It looks like the tread belt separated from the carcass. The teams can monitor wear from data they generate. I think they would have to rely on Pirelli for fatigue data anD who knows how much, if any they provide.

[Just_a_fan]

Could they possibly inbed a white layer that would show through at a ware point and the driver be advised to pit when it becomes visible? The option of carry on at your peril would pass the 'blame' to the team if they do not chose to.

Doesn't really help if the failure is the shoulder due to mechanical damage. It appears that there was damage caused by the drivers running off the track on the exit of Becketts at the start of the Chapel inside kerb. The kerb has been shortened so the drivers would normally have driven on to the kerb there last year but this year they were running across the edge of the tarmac. If that's the case, the simple solution is to put the kerb back, or tell the drivers not to drive off the side of the tarmac there. If they do, it's their problem.

[Stu]

Could they possibly inbed a white layer that would show through at a ware point and the driver be advised to pit when it becomes visible? The option of carry on at your peril would pass the 'blame' to the team if they do not chose to.

Doesn't really help if the failure is the shoulder due to mechanical damage. It appears that there was damage caused by the drivers running off the track on the exit of Becketts at the start of the Chapel inside kerb. The kerb has been shortened so the drivers would normally have driven on to the kerb there last year but this year they were running across the edge of the tarmac. If that's the case, the simple solution is to put the kerb back, or tell the drivers not to drive off the side of the tarmac there. If they do, it's their problem.

Agreed, the drivers will take shortcuts or exceed track limits (that would be the dirt at Becketts/Chapel...) if their is lap time to gain, it is in their nature. I seem to recall CART having a track limits ruling whereby the drivers were told, then warned, then penalised with a stop/go. Of course, rules would have to be implemented equally. Track limits was something that Vettel used to get away with repeatedly (while he was at Red Bull) while others were penalised for infrequent breaching.
If the drivers abuse the tyres, they will fail. If the teams are trying to push the boundaries of the fatigue life of the tyres, they will fail. If Pirelli really we’re bringing crappy tyres to events ALL of the tyres would fail, surely?

[Edax]

I did some rough forces, I used Hamilton’s Q3 lap so these would be lower in the race

Assuming Copse taken at 4G, car 760kg, in speed 313kph, out speed 297kph

Loads on front left
vertical force 7000N. ( 1600lbf)
Transverse force 11000N (2600lbf)
Drag force 500N (100lbf)

(Drag power around 40kW)


Similar numbers for the other 2 high speed corners

Impressive numbers.

Just to get an idea what that means, I think this video is quite telling.

[media] [/media]

[henry]

@edax. Yes, I’d seen that and it partly prompted me to work out some numbers. There’s also a nice picture of rear tyre distortion on a Red Bull, I can’t remember which thread.