Red Bull suspects McLaren and a few other teams of filling water into the tyres

[gandharva]

The first thing I'd do here is to replace water with even better medium. I wonder how harsh penalties should be if this gets caught... but FIA is a toothless tiger these days.

[organic]

The first thing I'd do here is to replace water with even better medium. I wonder how harsh penalties should be if this gets caught... but FIA is a toothless tiger these days.

Water is a very good medium. Very high latent heat of evaporation, under pressures used in pirellis tyres the bp of water is only just above the operating window of pirelli tyres, and its presence if discovered can be more easily hand waved away than any other more exotic/specific substance

[gandharva]

I think that a good chemist could easily find potential for improvement here. The trick itself seems to be so easy to implement that you can easily throw a few resources on it to pick up the one or other low hanging fruit.

[Vanja #66]

Formu1a Uno reports that red bull are not the only team that suspect McLaren did this

The latest case concerns McLaren's use of Pirelli compounds, a suspicion fueled and pushed by Red Bull but which has also found allies in other teams.

some teams strongly suspect that in Woking they had put water inside the tire via the inflation valve

Also the amounts in question are less than 10ml, not large quantities that would affect the unsprung mass considerably as speculated here

According to what Formu1a.uno learned in the last few hours, we are talking about milliliters , therefore very small quantities of water, considering that a single ml would allow a decrease of a few degrees in the temperature at the heart of the tire.

Recommend reading the full article

https://formu1a.uno/it/acqua-nelle-gomm ... -ha-prove/

Formu1a Uno going into this depth on the subject suggests to me that Ferrari believe that this idea holds some water

As I previously noted here, it fits very well as a "missing" puzzle on how McLaren operates their tyres in the race. Mediums in the first stint cooled down in this method would need slower laps initially and picking up the pace and even over-pushing them to heat up the carcass and make the water evaporate. At the same time, you extend the stint and lose minimal time compared to cars that are already on new Hards. Going 5-10 laps longer allows you to push like mad on Hards and you suspension geometry has no problem heating them up, even if they are harder to heat up than Mediums - because your Mediums are artificially cooled down. In the final 30-40% of the race you can be much faster than anyone else ahead, which is exactly what consistently happens with McLaren.

[Sergej]

I tend not to believe these "conspiracy theories" in absence of something substantial, anyway if this is real it will be easily caught up looking carefully at how McLaren will behave towards the end of the stints in these last races, so far they have been class of the field in this regard.

[Farnborough]

F1 has always followed the "unwritten" rule of whisper, in that if a team finds something tangible another is doing, then would adopt it if legal, or push it out into the open to either stop it or get approval.

Everyone, and particularly with how current information is spread, has their view on this, often calling names or throwing accusations (this from commentary on here and in press) when its never really been any different.

Its like a pressure relief valve and always will be.

Interesting from us here to find out what's going on though.