PlatinumZealot wrote: ↑10 Aug 2020, 17:10
zibby43 wrote: ↑09 Aug 2020, 20:46
aral wrote: ↑09 Aug 2020, 19:34
Are you saying that merc were overstraining their cars and that they are not as fast as the Red Bull? The RB was going everybit as fast but was not being overdriven so as to destroy its tyres.
It's not a matter of over-driving. Or tire degradation. It was a matter of blistering today.
Blistering occurs when a tire overheats. The excess heat causes the tread to soften, and then it starts to break away.
What factors can cause overheating? Several, but 2 of the most important are: 1) over-inflation and 2) high track temperatures. The third factor is how much the car is asking from the tires, and the Merc demands a lot due to the downforce it generates, but it is a very well-sorted car on the suspension front, which is why, the vast majority of the time since '19, Merc has had class-leading tire wear.
I also don't think there is anything Mercedes could've done in qualifying to make themselves slower in qualifying, and subsequently faster in the race. Those setup choices and the trade off between race and quali pace are more relevant when it comes to degradation, not an anomaly like blistering.
Kind of like how Mercedes goes with a low rake concept to be well-rounded and fast at the majority of circuits on the calendar, they design the car/suspension to consistently energize/work with the harder compounds that are used on race day, in a temperature range that best represents most of the calendar.
For whatever reason, the Red Bull struggles to get the best out of their car in the circumstances that apply to the vast majority of races, but on those one-off days when the tires are pumped up to levels approaching the PSI of a 19" road car tire and the track temperatures are 40+ C, the car just suddenly works.
Your concept of how downforce affects tyres is wrong.
More downforce can help tyre life in most situations because the tyre slides less.
RedBullwas actually running more downforce than Mercedes this race. Martin Brundle corroborated this.
On the flipside if that additional downforce is used to take corners at acessive speeds then the tyre will be worked much much harder which can lead to blistering so it is how u use the downforce and how u work / cool the tyres.
Mercedes car probably has a tyre cooling problem or works the tyre differently. Historically their cars always had bad tyre eating habits independent of downforce! It is difficult to say if its aero-related, wheel and brake duct related, or suspension kinematics related because if it were that easy they would have figured it out by now.
Are you referring to me?
I don't have anything wrong. Did you even read my post? I said almost nothing about downforce and whether or not that was a problem for Mercedes in the race.
Mercedes ran less downforce than last weekend, and made a setup change to protect the front-left tire that they were chewing through.
As a result, they were putting too much energy through the rear tires (in addition to sliding around on them more due to less downforce) and blistered them.
More downforce, as a general rule, helps tire degradation (which I state in my initial post).
More downforce, also, on a circuit like Silverstone, can punish a tire and put too much energy through it (like when the blowouts happened last weekend).
That's from Merc's engineers. So you can tell them they have their concept of how downforce affects tires wrong.
More careful reading of the thread required strad. 
