Pirelli Strategy 2011

[dave kumar]

WB, do we have evidence from other racing series that drier (less oily) compounds that produce a smaller differential between the grip online and offline?

It sounds plausible but my complete lack of knowledge means I'm wary of making the connection. Are 'dry' marbles much better than 'oily' ones - or is the quantity and size of marbles produced more important?

We may have to wait and see but I would hope someone has considered these matters before setting a direction for Pirelli to develop their tyres.

[myurr]

I think it's more that if the track doesn't rubber in then there won't be a rubbered in line that all the drivers have to follow. I'm sure the marbles won't help but have no idea if they're better or worse to drive over than previous years.

[ringo]

Those dang pirellis need more glue in'em.
I think they're cheaping out on the chemical content.

The tyres look like mostly synthetic rubber than anything else.

The least they could pay off a team to pick up some bridgestone rubber last year and hand it over to them.

The tyres are completely crap this year. I understand the need to have less durable tyres, but when it's so weak that you can't even do 3/4 of a lap with them that's ridiculous.
A tyre that can't do a lap? How do you evaluate such a tyre? how can that be desirable? I could understand if they had a 1 lap life, but turning in too hard half a lap in destroys them??

[WhiteBlue]

I think it's more that if the track doesn't rubber in then there won't be a rubbered in line that all the drivers have to follow. I'm sure the marbles won't help but have no idea if they're better or worse to drive over than previous years.

As I said above I'm not an expert on racing tyres but I have a fairly good understanding of producing technical rubber and rubber/steel components like silent blocks for engines. From this I know the basics of the technical process and what your main choices are.

The brittle debris will not stick to the track and is swept away where the cars produce enough turbulences. If there are alternative racing lines through some corners as you have on some modern tracks like Malaysia or China there should be fewer problems with passing IMO. There is surely a smaller differential between the two or multiple racing lines than off line and on the line with more sticky compounds. I cannot say how this will pan out for old and narrow tracks like Monaco but I would be optimistic that it would be better there as well.

Naturally the less sticky tyres would not be able to compete performance wise with the best products of Bridgestone and Michelin but atm this is not a concern. The tyre experts may think it is a big deal because they always look for highest performance but from a logical point of view it makes no sense to b ring a massively sticky tyre when you have no competition.

[myurr]

All sounds logical to me. I too am hopeful that these tyres will improve the racing. My only concern is that the drivers will have to protect them too much. It would be better, I think, if the tyres degraded for a few laps but then stabilised allowing the drivers to push. I don't know if that's possible whilst keeping the other desirable (in my view) traits, such as the track not rubbering in, marbles that are easily blown out of the way, etc.

[WhiteBlue]

Check out what JT had to say here:

viewtopic.php?p=165641#p165641

Beyond that, believe it or not, you WANT the marbles.

Is that more like tire designers want the marbles, but maybe drivers and fans don't? Meaning for the tire to work well you want the marbles, but for a cleaner track and potentially better racing you dont? Or am I off base here?

You kinda are. Tires are going to wear. Inescapable truth. You could put compounds on them that are as hard as a bowling ball, in which case the cars will be completely un-drivable and un-raceable. You don't want that.

You could have tires that turn to dust and wear out in a handful of laps without putting any rubber down on the track. Also has the potential of getting in radiators and ruining them. You don't want.

The marbles aren't going to go away. They've been around for decades in racing. They're no excuse for not being able to overtake.

The bolded option seems to be what Pirelli have done. JT denied that it is a valid solution. I think Pirelli are doing a good job. The tyres may be more fragile and have less performance but they are the same for all and could improve the racing aspect.

I'm not a performance fetishist and I think that driving below optimum thinkable performance is a small price to pay if the racing is improved by the tyre product. It is a new challenge to the race craft of the drivers. Every amount of performance they take out of the tyres will be punished by proportional degradation. It requires a very cerebral approach compared to the pedal to the metal way that is so beloved by the more puerile race fans.

Interestingly a lot of teams seem to have overheating problems, particularly Mercedes which may be explained by the dry tyre debris clogging up the radiators. We have seen McLaren team personnel collecting tyre debris. Are they using this collected matter to test their radiators with it? It appears that the teams may have an additional optimization parameter for their radiator design that could have been missed by some teams. Perhaps we will see a frantic race for radiators that are less prone to tyre debris clogging.

[ringo]

white blue i dont think offline passing will improve due to racing line not rubbering in and basically remaining the same as the rest of the width of the track.

What i think may happen is that the dry marbles will sit on the track and behave like debris instead. And we know that debris affects the grip of the tyres negatively.

These annoying rubber marbles could actually prevent ARW overtakes from being completed due to irregular grip offline.

[WhiteBlue]

We can indulge in all kind of speculation but we will not know the facts for some time.

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2011/02/21/p ... s-bahrain/

In the meantime the above source should make interesting reading. Pirelli seem to be desperate to get some hot weather testing under their belt.

I think in the fullness of time all the facts about the tyres will be revealed.

[dave kumar]

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2011/02/b ... ying-pace/

I had a long chat with Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery today. Pirelli have come in for some stick for the way the tyres are degrading, but he argues that this has a lot to do with them being designed for a higher working range of temperature. If the Spanish GP were held today, for example, it would be at least a three if not four stop race. However Hembery believes that when the race is held here in May in warmer conditions it will be a two stop race.

There has been a lot of talk about the way the track doesn’t rubber in with these tyres. That is due to a treatment they use on the tyre related to increasing the working range. Again it’s not something that will stay that way for ever.

I noticed when cars came in to the pits from long runs a build up of ‘marbles’ on the floor of the car just ahead of the rear wheels. Again this effect is due to the tyres chunking in the low temperatures and again Pirelli say it will be better in a higher temperature range. That’s why the loss of Bahrain test is a blow to them, as they were hoping for validation of their theory.

Low temperatures a problem for evaluating the tyres. It's going to make Melbourne an interesting GP if the teams turn up there without having run the tyres in warm conditions.

[Jersey Tom]

The tyre experts may think it is a big deal because they always look for highest performance but from a logical point of view it makes no sense to b ring a massively sticky tyre when you have no competition.

Edit - Going to reduce my post down to this:

I find that pretty insulting, particularly given the series I work in.

[Mysticf1]

Low temperatures a problem for evaluating the tyres. It's going to make Melbourne an interesting GP if the teams turn up there without having run the tyres in warm conditions.

It hasnt been a particularly warm summer in melb this year so the temps could go either way.

[ringo]

from autosport

Trulli, however, reckons the tyres are lacking balance.

"I think something is still missing in the development, because the tyres aren't balanced yet," Trulli was quoted as saying by Autosprint magazine.

"I think this is the biggest problem to face at the moment. Pirelli says that this is what the FIA asked them to do, to have tyres that wear quickly, but I don't think this is the problem.

"In my opinion tyre wear is secondary compared to the tyre's balance problems, because at the moment you get on the track with a new tyre that initially is understeering, and after three laps the behaviour is the opposite, that is impossible oversteering."

to the tyre experts, what's to blame for this?

[WhiteBlue]

The tyre experts may think it is a big deal because they always look for highest performance but from a logical point of view it makes no sense to b ring a massively sticky tyre when you have no competition.

Edit - Going to reduce my post down to this:

I find that pretty insulting, particularly given the series I work in.

I had no intention to insult someone. We are discussing tyre properties here. Care to elaborate what aspect of the quoted sentence is offensive?

[Richard]

I wonder how the current performance compares with the warmer weather testing they did in Abu Dhabi.

Nick Heidfeld is the only driver to put on a high number of laps in hot weather, and also testing at Barcelona. It'll be interesting to hear this views.

Jersey_tom - In understand your pride in durable robust tyres that go on and on and on forever. As a spectator, I want to see some degradation to ensure 2 or 3 stops per race. That would give more variability in how the race strategy plays out.

[audifan]

http://www.f1sa.com/index.php?option=co ... Itemid=157