Michelin Coming Back?

[bhall]

This is such a weird topic.

The rules have made the cars virtually identical. I mean, the parity in F1 these days is unheard of. But, because of that, the races would be processional without the performance differentiation provided by funky tires. So, on one hand, the characteristics of the tires are absolutely vital to what most seem to call a "great season."

Yet, others - including me - see the tires as detrimental to good, hard racing because of the way they must be nursed around the track for any hope of longevity. The solution is a more robust tire, which, due to F1's parity, would likely cause processional races. See: above.

So, what do you do?

[Jersey Tom]

This is such a weird topic.

The rules have made the cars virtually identical. I mean, the parity in F1 these days is unheard of.

I do not agree with this statement.

[myurr]

This is such a weird topic.

The rules have made the cars virtually identical. I mean, the parity in F1 these days is unheard of. But, because of that, the races would be processional without the performance differentiation provided by funky tires. So, on one hand, the characteristics of the tires are absolutely vital to what most seem to call a "great season."

Yet, others - including me - see the tires as detrimental to good, hard racing because of the way they must be nursed around the track for any hope of longevity. The solution is a more robust tire, which, due to F1's parity, would likely cause processional races. See: above.

So, what do you do?

If the cars all had wildly different performance then all you end up with is field spread - it is impossible for car A and B to race each other if their performance is significantly different. At least with closely matched cars you end up with small variations in performance at different times over the weekend allowing drivers to challenge each other. The biggest cause of processional racing is not the closely matched nature of the cars but the dependence on aerodynamics.

You also maintain the illusion that F1 has ever been an out and out sprint. If they are not conserving the tyres then they'd be conserving fuel or engine life or some other component. There will always be a weak point where conserving that factor is faster than the penalty of a more robust solution.

[bhall]

This is such a weird topic.

The rules have made the cars virtually identical. I mean, the parity in F1 these days is unheard of.

I do not agree with this statement.

Seven different winners of the first seven races from five different teams? Six different teams on the podium? That's as much parity as anyone has seen in F1 for a long, loooooong time.

If the cars all had wildly different performance then all you end up with is field spread - it is impossible for car A and B to race each other if their performance is significantly different. At least with closely matched cars you end up with small variations in performance at different times over the weekend allowing drivers to challenge each other. The biggest cause of processional racing is not the closely matched nature of the cars but the dependence on aerodynamics.

You also maintain the illusion that F1 has ever been an out and out sprint. If they are not conserving the tyres then they'd be conserving fuel or engine life or some other component. There will always be a weak point where conserving that factor is faster than the penalty of a more robust solution.

I do not agree with this statement. Furthermore, you're still ascribing to me points of conversation I never made. Just stop. I mean that. Stop.

[AlpineF1]

ferraris car was pretty radical thats turned out well for them to be honest this year the cars have been much more different in my opinion without the blown diffusers the drivers and cars are put to the test more which is good right?

[Harvey]

This is such a weird topic.

The rules have made the cars virtually identical. I mean, the parity in F1 these days is unheard of. But, because of that, the races would be processional without the performance differentiation provided by funky tires. So, on one hand, the characteristics of the tires are absolutely vital to what most seem to call a "great season."

Yet, others - including me - see the tires as detrimental to good, hard racing because of the way they must be nursed around the track for any hope of longevity. The solution is a more robust tire, which, due to F1's parity, would likely cause processional races. See: above.

So, what do you do?

I agree with the aero/tyres bit.
But the bold bit. When they were having to do just that with the 80s turbos, they were lauded as heroes of the highest order. Why is nursing an engine on the precipice of death any different to nursing a set of tyres on a very similar precipice?

[Jersey Tom]

This is such a weird topic.

The rules have made the cars virtually identical. I mean, the parity in F1 these days is unheard of.

I do not agree with this statement.

Seven different winners of the first seven races from five different teams? Six different teams on the podium? That's as much parity as anyone has seen in F1 for a long, loooooong time.

Randomized race results are not equal to parity of performance. Practice and qualifying times speak to that IMO.

I'd rather have closer parity in PERFORMANCE and let that drive the race results, rather than all the crutches that have been thrown at the sport recently to mix things up. Closer parity in performance by either better regulated budgets or what have you. Don't limit creativity.

[Harvey]

SNIP

But don't you see that there are no comparables to Pirelli in F1 today? They don't have a Bridgestone to their Michelin at Indy.
To put it another way, if the teams had rocked up to Indy all those years ago with every car on Michelins, Michelin wouldn't have looked so bad. They wouldn't have made a "bad" tyre, as they wouldn't have had a competitor able to make the banked turn at full chat - ie, the "good" tyre. And every team would've been hurt equally. And like wise it would've been up to each team to try and find a solution - whether that be setup/tuning or getting together and agreeing on a new corner profile.
That's the scenario we're in today. Every team has the same tyres, so therefore there can't be good or bad tyres. There's just tyres. And it's the teams job to do the best they can with them.

And with regards to it hurting Pirelli's image. I still don't buy it. They're associated with F1, the (so called) pinnacle of motorsport. How could that possibly hurt their image? That's like saying Allianz is getting a bad rep for sponsoring the safety and medical cars - after all, why would you buy a product from a company that you've now associated with a horrific crash and a trip in an air ambulance? It doesn't work like that. They sponsor F1, therefore they're at a similar pinnacle. The public aren't stupid enough to think "Oh, Lewis can't do 40laps on the softs. Take these POS Pirelli's on and give me anything else!" Firstly, cos F1 cars look so completely different from road cars and therefore so must be their tyres; secondly, F1 tyres are high profile, who buys high profile tyres if you're bothered about performance?! And lastly, because they don't have a base line for "good" tyres as their isn't competition.
Maybe they thought they did have an image problem before entering F1 again. After all, they'd probably seen Michelin and Bridgestone steal a lot of their sales in the performance tyre market since they left F1 previously. Maybe they'd realised that their image of high performance was based on a historical period of when they used to provide tyres in top flight motorsport, and they wanted to give that historical context a contemporary bed fellow.

[Jersey Tom]

But don't you see that there are no comparables to Pirelli in F1 today? They don't have a Bridgestone to their Michelin at Indy.
To put it another way, if the teams had rocked up to Indy all those years ago with every car on Michelins, Michelin wouldn't have looked so bad.

Oh yes they would have. Want an example? Brickyard 400, 2008. Atlanta as well from the same year is a great example of racing on a poor tire rec with no "grip" and the cars being a handful for the drivers. It doesn't make the racing "awesome." Everyone hated it.

[bhall]

Randomized race results are not equal to parity of performance. Practice and qualifying times speak to that IMO.

I'd rather have closer parity in PERFORMANCE and let that drive the race results, rather than all the crutches that have been thrown at the sport recently to mix things up. Closer parity in performance by either better regulated budgets or what have you. Don't limit creativity.

The 2012 Spanish Grand Prix saw 11 cars lapping within the 1:22s in Q2, six cars lapping within 1 second of one another in Q3 (three drivers abstained from Q3 altogether to save tires).

The 2012 Sao Paulo Indy 300 had 10 cars lapping within the 1:21s in Q2 and six cars lapping within 1 second of one another in Q3.

This is Formula One and a spec-series demonstrating equal parity. I didn't cherry pick these two races, either. I just picked them out of a veritable hat. It is what it is.

Without the tires, what's the difference between the cars?

[SeijaKessen]

I do not agree with this statement.

Seven different winners of the first seven races from five different teams? Six different teams on the podium? That's as much parity as anyone has seen in F1 for a long, loooooong time.

Randomized race results are not equal to parity of performance. Practice and qualifying times speak to that IMO.

I'd rather have closer parity in PERFORMANCE and let that drive the race results, rather than all the crutches that have been thrown at the sport recently to mix things up. Closer parity in performance by either better regulated budgets or what have you. Don't limit creativity.

Ah yes, but JT, we have spec races.

F1 has never been about parity, historically speaking.

If I want to watch closer parity in performance and tires, I can flip on NASCAR.

But watching cars drive around an oval holds little interest to me. I've flipped on a few NASCAR races this season, and all I saw were a pack of cars bunched up together with the leader unable to really pull away. Coincidentally, in the races I did see, everything came down to the final lap. Maybe there have been races where the winner just opened up a massive gap on the field, but I did not see it personally.

The more regulated budgets and restrictions are, the less likely we are to see creativity in any form since there is less to work with.

[SeijaKessen]

Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery says he is not yet sure whether his company would stay in F1 if the so-called tyre war returned to the sport.

Hembery reckons the move would not make sense, as he feels the racing would be much less exciting.

"We work for the sport. The sport has to decide what it wants," Hembery said. "If it wants a tyre war and procession racing again, like it did in the early 2000s, when the audience disappeared, than that's one approach. It's not for us to decide.

"We will wait and see if the rules change. If they change, then we will consider it. At the moment the teams are certainly not interested in a tyre war."

Formula 1 last had a tyre war in 2006, when Michelin quit the sport and left Bridgestone as the sole tyre supplier. Pirelli replaced the Japanese manufacturer at the start of the 2011 season.

Hembery thinks the public is not interested in a fight of the tyre suppliers, and believes the move would mean cost would escalate once again.

"We would have to see the rules first, what does it really mean to have a tyre war? If it means spending 100 million euros to go half a second quicker, and you can't even prove that you have the better tyre, because the teams will dominate still, it is pointless," he said.

"We saw that in the past. You'll only get a reputation in F1 as a tyre maker if you do an Indianapolis, and you stop a race.

"Ultimately no one could really make out what tyres were on what car when there was a tyre war. Nobody knew, because all the money was being spent on trying to find performance that the public couldn't see. And if the public can't see it, we don't understand it."

Citing the 2005 US Grand Prix fiasco as an example, when only the six cars on Bridgestones started the race, Hembery also stated that a tyre war would ultimately be unsafe.

"All the teams I've talked to don't want a tyre war. They see it as money wasted on an area they can't control, and have limited value to the public. And ultimately at least for safety issues," he said. "The tyre companies would push the safety barriers, because that's where you get performance.

"As we saw it in Indianapolis, that's the ultimate effect of a tyre war. I don't think that's good for tyre makers, and certainly not good for the sport.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/101680

It's more of a case of him knowing their tires as they are now wouldn't cut it if another supplier got involved.

Too bad Goodyear doesn't come back. Something tells me almost every team would be running Goodyears when all is said and done.

[Jersey Tom]

I'd say it would be difficult for Pirelli to be on par with products from some other larger tire manufacturers with more resources and background. Just as much as Force India battling Red Bull. People love to go on about "Well the only reason Pirellis fall off is because the FIA asked them to." I'd say that's at most a half truth. My opinion here - just my feeling - if Michelin or whoever were to have stepped in at the beginning of this year as a competitor - or at the beginning of next year, whatever... I think Pirelli would have struggled to make their product line much better. How good or bad their broad-application summer or DOT track tires are doesn't really have much bearing on it. Completely different ball game there. Just as much as Nissan selling GT-R's versus trying to run a grand prix racing program.

As I said.. there's a reason why Bridgestone said to hell with F1, why Michelin has been out of it and wouldn't go back in the current system of things, and why Goodyear has been out of it since '98. Likewise why Honda and Toyota packed up. Just not worth it / can't justify the expense. It's outrageously expensive enough to be a single supplier, much less a tire war. Just not a very approachable series as a racer or supplier I don't think.

I'll admit, while I was still on the side of being at a tire company, when the F1 contract came open I would have loved to go in there either as a single supplier or tire war. For me, personally, that would have been fun. A number of my coworkers / managers had done it in the 80's and 90's. But the reality of the situation was obvious even to me that the chances of it were extremely thin.

[Jersey Tom]

The more regulated budgets and restrictions are, the less likely we are to see creativity in any form since there is less to work with.

Couldn't disagree more. Varied and interesting solutions are a function of the rule book, not budget. Want to see creative "racecar" engineering? Go to a Formula SAE / Formula Student event. Budget is on the order of $25,000 a year probably, on average, and you'll see as varied and creatively designed cars as you can imagine (not always the BEST ideas but they're certainly varied). Steel frames vs monocoques, aero package vs no aero package, different suspension topologies, different engine displacements and configurations, etc. And they're all capable of winning!

For some time now I've been a proponent of tightening up F1 budgets to make the series more accessible to a broader field, and open up the rule book in areas to encourage a larger variety of engineering approaches. Unlimited KERS, unlimited engine displacement and configuration (cylinders, NA vs FI..) with a fixed quantity of fuel available for a weekend. You'd see some interesting stuff then.

[bhall]

This is such a weird topic.

The rules have made the cars virtually identical. I mean, the parity in F1 these days is unheard of. But, because of that, the races would be processional without the performance differentiation provided by funky tires. So, on one hand, the characteristics of the tires are absolutely vital to what most seem to call a "great season."

Yet, others - including me - see the tires as detrimental to good, hard racing because of the way they must be nursed around the track for any hope of longevity. The solution is a more robust tire, which, due to F1's parity, would likely cause processional races. See: above.

So, what do you do?

I agree with the aero/tyres bit.
But the bold bit. When they were having to do just that with the 80s turbos, they were lauded as heroes of the highest order. Why is nursing an engine on the precipice of death any different to nursing a set of tyres on a very similar precipice?

There was no aero/tires bit. I do not recognize a correlation between aero-dependance and processional racing. Those things have absolutely nothing to do with one another.

I do, however, recognize the coincidence of an increase of processional racing in a series that also became more aerodynamic at the same time. But, they aren't related at all.

Processional racing is the result of one of two things: a narrow formula that produces cars with very similar performance levels or a wide-open formula that produces cars with very different performance levels. The only difference is the gaps within the procession.

In the case of a narrow formula, the processions are the result of cars that tend to want to occupy the same spot on the track at the same time, because their performance levels are roughly the same. Physics tells us that's simply not possible. So, the cars then follow each other closely in a procession.

In the case of a wide-open formula, the processions are inevitably the result of one group of cars blitzing around the circuit while other cars struggle to keep up. The races then are processions of vastly different engineering projects.

However, in both cases, aerodynamics is neither friend nor foe. It's just a factor that, at most, affects the gaps between cars.

To answer your question - and stop this needless rant - nursing a monstrous turbo to the end of a race was a necessity because having a car equipped with a monstrous turbo was required to be competitive against other teams that also had monstrous turbos. Competition made that a necessity.

People, not competition, decided that funky tires are a necessity. They did so when they decided that the formula should rely upon varying levels of performance of funky tires to supply the "just right" porridge of performance differentiation that different formulas had thus far apparently failed to achieve. I view this as a crutch-type solution.

I, for one, would rather see an open formula that relies upon talent and ingenuity to prevent processional racing. But, I understand that processions might happen regardless of talent and ingenuity. I just don't particularly care.