Poll on F1 tyre companies

[Jersey Tom]

If history really warranted future performance - what I do not believe is true - the choice would be Bridgestone.

Pirelli, Michelin and Goodyear each one had a big fiasco in the past 10 years or so.

Difference being Michelin and Goodyear fixed their problems and moved on...

And Pirelli is not allowed by the rules.

Complete and total BS!

[rjsa]

Difference being Michelin and Goodyear fixed their problems and moved on...

And Pirelli is not allowed by the rules.

Complete and total BS!

Care to elaborate? They where allowed to change construction prior to Silverstone?

And are also free to test and see if the proposed fix works, right?

Don't get me wrong, Pirelli screwed big time. But Michelin and Goodyear are just as deep in mud as Pirelli is, that's my point.

[WhiteBlue]

It's left to the teams to decide....how can the FIA allow that?
Pirelli had a solution but weren't allowed to bring it due to some teams misgivings.

The answer is simple. Pirelli mislead the federation by claiming there is no safety issue. This makes it impossible for the federation to claim a safety motivated rule change in season. Or at least it had been terribly controversial.

This situation is not a fault of Pirelli, and entirely a governance issue.

I disagree. In the end the buck still stops at Hemberies desk. He screwed up.

[MIKEY_!]

Why doesn't the FIA just make their own tires and sell the sidewall as advertising space? Set up costs would be high I guess since they don't have any capability to do this at the moment as far as I know, but at least we'd avoid some of the nonsense that's gone on recently.

I like the idea of giving smaller companies a shot at making the tires, however I think that could have even higher risk of something going wrong.

[Jersey Tom]

And Pirelli is not allowed by the rules.

Complete and total BS!

Care to elaborate? They where allowed to change construction prior to Silverstone?

And are also free to test and see if the proposed fix works, right?

Don't get me wrong, Pirelli screwed big time. But Michelin and Goodyear are just as deep in mud as Pirelli is, that's my point.

Pirelli can do as much internal lab durability testing as they please. That is the primary endurance test for tires - you don't go track testing and tell a driver to keep running laps until their tire explodes and they wreck their car.

I don't see how the Michelin or Goodyear situations are similar. Both had an atrocious race at Indy - but that was it. One problem and done, and a good track record before and after. Even of that, the Goodyear bit is in an entirely different and IMO more severe race series. Either way, both companies owned up immediately and solved their issues.

Pirelli on the other hand have had several weekends this year (so far!) of major tire issues, plus poor performance in general, have apparently supplied teams junk data to begin with (with their wind tunnel tires), and seemingly only take any sort of ownership of their faults after being pressured. Not to mention their reputation in some other race series has been quite poor.

[WhiteBlue]

Pirelli on the other hand have had several weekends this year (so far!) of major tire issues, plus poor performance in general, have apparently supplied teams junk data to begin with (with their wind tunnel tires), and seemingly only take any sort of ownership of their faults after being pressured. Not to mention their reputation in some other race series has been quite poor.

You have been telling us of the downside of Pirelli for a long time. Some credit should be given for that. I personally had an open mind about Pirelli initally but now I cannot defend them against your judgement. I think you are spot on.

[lebesset]

Pirelli on the other hand have had several weekends this year (so far!) of major tire issues, plus poor performance in general, have apparently supplied teams junk data to begin with (with their wind tunnel tires), and seemingly only take any sort of ownership of their faults after being pressured. Not to mention their reputation in some other race series has been quite poor.

You have been telling us of the downside of Pirelli for a long time. Some credit should be given for that. I personally had an open mind about Pirelli initally but now I cannot defend them against your judgement. I think you are spot on.

quite clear you have a bias elsewhere tom , presumably you have a connection with another manufacturer

care to come out into the open about it ?

[Tim.Wright]

JT basically correctly predicted this mess a few years ago.

Why would you call that "bias" and not an "educated guess".

You don't need to look very far to see why he is in a better position than most to judge Pirelli on this...

[Jersey Tom]

Pirelli on the other hand have had several weekends this year (so far!) of major tire issues, plus poor performance in general, have apparently supplied teams junk data to begin with (with their wind tunnel tires), and seemingly only take any sort of ownership of their faults after being pressured. Not to mention their reputation in some other race series has been quite poor.

You have been telling us of the downside of Pirelli for a long time. Some credit should be given for that. I personally had an open mind about Pirelli initally but now I cannot defend them against your judgement. I think you are spot on.

quite clear you have a bias elsewhere tom , presumably you have a connection with another manufacturer

care to come out into the open about it ?

There's no secret that I used to work for a tire company, I've said that many times. There's no bias in this case - I give credit where credit is due. For the most part there are the "big three" of tire companies - Bridgestone/Firestone, Michelin/BFG, and Goodyear/Dunlop. Each of those "families" have extensive R&D capability, a large workforce, and lots of experience at center stage in high level motorsports delivering excellent products.

Pirelli just aren't in that group, not for bankroll and capabilities, nor for results. Let's put hard numbers to it and talk annual revenue for a number of tire companies:

Bridgestone: 30 billion USD
Michelin: 28 billion USD
Goodyear: 19 billion USD
Pirelli: 8 billion USD
Hankook: 4 billion USD

Just not even close, and it's reflected in results. Pirelli have provided poor product and service in F1 in these recent years as a single supplier. When there are substantial durability problems and failures over multiple weeks (which I can't recall having happened before in the series), it's no longer subjective interpretation - it's pretty undeniable. Not to mention denying/hiding the cause of some of the early failures ("punctures"), supplying bogus wind tunnel tires, etc etc.

If someone wants to play the card of, "Oh well they're being told to bring crap tires, blah blah blah" then look back to when they were in open competition with Goodyear in F1. Didn't win a single race over the years they were there. Might have had one pole position. Or go ask the drivers and engineers in other race series that have to use their products, get the answer straight from the horses mouth.

I'll be quite fair and say it's a tough position to be in as a smaller company, but it's also a position they signed up for and knew they were getting into.

In any event I feel like all of this stuff that's going on now was quite apparent several years ago when they were first taking the contract. Having worked in the tire industry (specifically in the motorsport sector) I had a pretty strong opinion on it, absolutely - but based on personal experience, not irrational or unfounded bias.

[lebesset]

well , that is comparing apples and pears

in the past tyre companies were allowed plenty of testing , not available to pirelli since they took the contract ; nor were they asked to provide tyres that spiced up the racing ; so virtually a different product

and what has size got to do with it anyway ...most of the worlds most highly regarded companies are no more than small to medium sized companies , from what I see on high performance vehicles here in europe pirelli are the most highly regarded tyres ...unless you think that companies that make them are not interested in performance and quality ; you might as well say that the biggest car manufacturers make the highest quality cars

and if you say you have previously declared your employment in the tyre industry then I accept that ...suffice it to say that in the years I have followed this forum I have never noticed it

[WhiteBlue]

Well said, JT!!! I think it more like a babe in the woods than a villain situation. They should not have listened so much to Bernie. It sounds pretty dumb to down play a safety problem and try to mislead everybody and then find out that eventually the whole things blows up spectacularly. By now all technically educated or experienced observers have realized that all the 2013 Pirelli problems have the same background - over heating - and that the construction change from Kevlar to steel had a big contribution to that problem in the first place. I could go into details but the regular readers of this thread know them all, so I will not.

I have known it for some years that Tom has worked in the tyre industry, and so have many others. A small company with low margins and small profit is less capable to invest in R&D. A factor which is relevant in my view. They are also less capable to attract good leadership figures. That seems particularly true for Hembery, who is second tier if at all.

[Tim.Wright]

well , that is comparing apples and pears

in the past tyre companies were allowed plenty of testing , not available to pirelli since they took the contract ; nor were they asked to provide tyres that spiced up the racing ; so virtually a different product

Up until a few months ago I bought that excuse too. I can accept that no testing and a strange request from the governing body regarding degradation could produce some tyres that are slightly flawed. I.e. inconsistent or sharp drop off in performance, unreasonable sensitivity to ambient temperature, bad wear characteristics etc...

BUT... complete and catastrophic structural failures?? No way is that in any way acceptable. That is just plain a bad, wrong, shite design what ever you want to call it. You can't blame that on the FIA, the rules, the teams, the track nothing. That is solely a design problem created only by Pirelli.

I really cannot fathom how after Silverstone, people are still playing the "oh they couldn't test" card. Its really too late for that excuse now.

[WhiteBlue]

Some days ago I read an article that was written in 2004.German source
It was about tyre development for speeds up to 360 kph by Continental for road cars. That is actually about max F1 speed. They did a lot of tests in Nardo where the European automotive industry does all the high speed testing.
They found out that they needed to provide much more cooling by designing special tread patterns and they had to increase the steel band strands from 25 to 36 which is almost 50% more in order to stiffen the construction and stop standing waves. Nardo is a circular high speed track that generates all the problems that you also have in F1 in Indianapolis (banking), Silverstone (esses) and Spa (Eau rouge). So you basically know that such conditions may require you to provide 50% higher tensile strength or alternatively massive differences in the damping material properties. A fifty percent jump which you just need for the occasional high speed track is probably far in excess of what they calculated at Pirelly in terms of safety margin. But if I can find such data just by googleing why can't Pirelli find these things if they are applying the necessary diligence?
They have a test car which they can drive in Nardo. Why not go there and accept that the tyre will hold together for some seconds of high speed F1 corners if it can stand two hours at Nardo with 360 kph. I'm pretty sure a tyre designed and tested that way will never fail them and they will have a wonderful safety margin.
Alternatively they can do what Michelin did. They have simulated the Indianapolis banking on a dyno and found that all their alternative constructions would have failed. I'm pretty sure from that point on they knew what kind of parameters to set for all their new product development tests. There are many ways to skin a rabbit if you are hungry and need to eat. It appears that Pirelli just have not tried hard enough to find them.
The point is you have to undestand your critical load case and then design your tests to be even tougher. In the end you have a product that is excellent and will not let you down. But Pirelli don't think that way.

[xxChrisxx]

They have a test car which they can drive in Nardo. Why not go there and accept that the tyre will hold together for some seconds of high speed F1 corners if it can stand two hours at Nardo with 360 kph. I'm pretty sure a tyre designed and tested that way will never fail them and they will have a wonderful safety margin.

Because they are two different loading regimes, and can't be compared.

At 360kph, the Nardo test would be like going round a gentle bend at 100kph. It's also a very 'static' test. Having a highly transient load caused by at 4+g loads the tyre in a completely different way.


The problem with over engineering a tyre is you then make it impossible to put in enough temperature to get the tyre working properly, so in the end it'll never fail but you have no grip. It's why tyres are such tricky beasts, you have a very narrow window to aim for where the tyre is considered 'good'.

If your constraints are 'good grip' and an operating window that suits the car, it's a narrow window. When you start adding other criteria, like 'must have a specific durability'. The window gets even narrower. Then to have a control tyre, that tried to suit all teams... : / forget about it.

Pirelli were always on to a loser with the F1 contract, they were told to bring less durable tyres, but one that still provided hard racing and suited the teams. It's just a brief that was impossible to fulfill. Other tyre companies saw the iceberg and duly avoided it.

I can see that Pirelli went with good intentions but it's clear they are out of their depth. As for letting teams run with the tyres on the incorrect side at low pressures, and not saying anything. That's just silly.

[WhiteBlue]

Chris, I really appreciate your point about the different nature of the load in Nardo and F1. You are right there. But I did not mean that test to be the only one. It was just an example for a pro active way of finding appropriate testing. My main point in this debate is pretty much in line with your thinking. Pirelli unnecessarily got themselves into a situation where they neglected an appropriate safety margin to satisfy unreasonable demands. And when they should have realized their mistake they did not have the stones to go to the FiA and demand changes based on safety ground. Finally when they had their debacle they continued to lie. And it has been Hembery personally who was responsible throughout the whole story. I don't like the man.