F1 Tires

The main reason and please someone correct me if I'm wrong is to encourage more competition between the teams so you don't have a season like 2011 where one team or driver is running away with the races.

 

Because tire management is a driving skill. Some are better at it than others.

 

If I remember it well, when the FIA (Mosley at the time), decided to put tyre supply to tender to one manufacturer on cost ground to avoid a repeat of the tyre war in the 80s, Bernie Ecclestone insisted that some tyre degradation was necessary to maintain the entertainment in F1.

By that he meant to keep the pit stops and make tyre strategy a pivotal aspect of GP.
In sort, now that refuelling is banned, providing tyre with some degree of degradation forces several pit stops and keep the spectacle interesting.

The fact there are 2 types of tyres, and competitors have to use both during a race is to ensure that at least 1 pit stop occurs.

Like you, I wish this variable had never been added to racing; I am sure Pirelli or others could perfectly well provide tyres that last the whole race, and we wouldn't have these gimmicks with pit stops.

Fire in the pit lane was one of the factor to stop refuelling. I suppose that the death of a mechanic during a tyre stop will be necessary to review the regulations.

I have noticed that in endurance, or some GT racing, pit stop are timed, and a car cannot restart before 1 minute. This is to penalise those who need to stop too frequently, whilst ensuring that operations on the cars are not rushed but carried out properly.

 

Exactly!

This is the World Drivers Championship, and the World Constructors Championship.
Not the world mechanics championship.

 

So if you have these hypothetical Hard, durable tyres in F1 and the cars are evenly matched (think Sutil, Vettel, Massa and Alonso in Australia), you simply end up with a processional race where they all just follow each other to the finish line.

Sutil's car was fast enough in a straight line to negate the DRS advantage of his rivals behind and so no one could get round him.

Because of the timing of the second pitstops, Alonso was able to jump all three of the other drivers and get the advantage. Without the pitstop, he would have had to either try something a bit reckless and risk a DNF, or simply settle for the position he was in.

But what you're failing to take into account is that the mechanics construct the cars at each race for the manufacturer and pitstops give them the opportunity to have a more direct input during the races for their championship (the WCC). Not only can the driver make a difference, so can they.

At the end of the day, it may be the World Drivers Championship and the World Constructors Championship, but it's a team sport and the mechanics are a big part of that team.

 

The reason for the rules being the way they are is that F1 had to sell the value of a tire supplier spending millions of dollars to supply F1 tires. They had to offer them some kind of value for that investment.

With a tire war, the tires are a very hot topic. With a standardized tire, tires are a non-issue that nobody cares about.

Thus, to keep the tires as a hot topic, the tire manufacturer came up with different compounds, and the FIA came up with a rule that the teams must use both of the different kinds of tires. This keeps it "interesting".

It worked, because we hear about the tires constantly, and everyone knows all about the different tires and how they work (or don't), etc. Tires are a huge part of F1.

Nothing will ever be done to stop tires being a huge aspect of F1, because the microsecond that happens, Pirelli (or Michelin or Bridgestone or Firestone or anyone else) at that point as zero incentive to spend a boatload of money supplying tires to F1.

 

Personally I think they should provide ALL tire types at each race and let the teams pick which ones they will use.

Ferrari's strategy in Spain last week proved that they can run the tires ragged and pit more rather than save the tires. It's simple math when it comes down to it. Time in the pits versus time taken off each lap.

 

That would be a pretty large logistical issue.

 

The OP's suggestion of one set of tires for the entire race was attempted in 2005. The rule was indeed adjusted during that season to allow changes for safety following Kimi's famous flat spot/suspension collapse in the McLaren. The current state of affairs with multi compound tires was the result of the ban on refueling. Without pit stops happening for tire changes the race would be run without stops. Pit stops are seen as a necessary element to add more variables and strategy to the mix. The current formula actually seems to be good for racing, the only question is what tire compounds make practical sense ... which leads us back to the present discussion.

 

The current tire situation is quite simply a way for the F1 Principle (Bernie Ecclestone) to "level the playing field" by throwing the randomness of highly sensitive tires into the mix. It's also not so much a matter of "who can manage their tires the best" as it's about who can design a car that's fast yet has good enough balance not to eat the tires. Lotus is not necessarily one of the fastest cars on the grid, but the team has used its FRIC system so effectively that the car has tremendous mechanical grip without having too much downforce/aero resulting in rapid tire degradation.

What everyone must understand is that new tire compounds are created for each circuit to ensure the field is kept close by making the tires an "x-factor". This is VERY intentional as F1 Supremo Bernie doesn't want anymore runaway WDC campaigns.

I think in a lot of ways, he's been effective about keeping the championship competitive. I think the big problem this year is the specter of seeing tires unravel on track (even though they've been designed to allow drivers to make it back to the pits following a catastrophic blowout).

 

From this standpoint, I think this is where Pirelli/F1 has crapped their pants. The kind of news this strategy is creating is not the kind that will lead to a high demand of Pirelli tires. When Michelin/Bridgestone had their war about 8 years ago, I think it made Bridgestones look good, but Michelins looked super. Pirelli having tires degrade after an small number of laps (or worse, delaminating) is not a very good marketing strategy.

The average person knows nothing of Ecclestone's edicts and will simply conclude that Pirelli doesn't build a high-quality tire.

 

Not true. Tire compounds (& indeed construction) were "fixed" ahead of the first test. [IIRC, they may have tweaked the hard some later, but a minor point.]

Pirelli hands out 60% models that behave the same (flex wise) for tunnel testing. They also give 'em all Pacejka models for use in their sims. [Google it, I had to! ]

From here on, they should all be cast in stone for the remainder of the season unless "safety" becomes an issue OR the teams unanimously agree to any change(s).

Cheers,
Ian

 

You're correct...there was a one-off change of the hard compounds after complaints from the teams, but they basically change the actual tire choices from race-to-race (which is what I intended to communicate...it was a long day yesterday). This ranges from the four tire variations available, from which two are selected depending on the circuit.

The actual compound changes for Barcelona and now Canada are responses to complaints from the teams.

 

+1

One thought I've mentioned before is to allow the teams to "pre-order" whichever two variations they want each race. Logistically, they can't take all four to every round, but if they knew who wanted what ahead of time I'm sure they could do it.

FWIW, Monaco is soft & S/S!.... If the stories are to be believed they'll all be running on canvas by about half distance.....

No changes in Barcelona. Big changes coming in Canada though.

Further, I don't believe the teams are actually complaining. OK, they all whine when it happens to be their ox getting gored, but that's nothing new......

I'm now convinced Pirelli have simply said "we've had enough of being the whipping boy and we're returning to 2012 specs, screw you guys, take it or leave it!"

Cheers,
Ian

 

There was a change to the Hard compound in Barcelona.

It sounds like the change for Canada will be a) keep the front tires as they are and b) change the rears to last year's tire spec. I'm not so certain this is the win for RBR that we are expecting, as their issues are with overworking their front tires. It will definitely help Merc though.

The only problem now, though, is that when a rear tire is punctured, the car is out of the race (as in the past).