Malasyia GP Tire Issues

If anyone was easy on their tires it was DC; Alonso had barely any visible tread left on his but apparently it was sufficient to satisfy the scutineers. Did RB actually retire his car for safety reasons since his tires were so shot or was it something else?

 

During the race RB's car developed quite a lot of oversteer all of a sudden . After 20 laps, the Ferrari team found out that Rubens car had a piece of rubber that got attached to the wing. Because he ran 20 laps with too much oversteer, his tyres were ruined at the end.

 

I read that, too. It's hard to imagine a "piece of rubber" large enough to cause huge problems, and it wasn't visible to the cameras or Hobbs and company would have pointed it out. It looked like Michael's tires were toast also, I wonder if they were just trying to be kind to Bridgestone.

Gary

 

Bridgestone didn't get it right this week-end, there's no doubt about it. Piece of rubber = story made up?

 

It's likely that there was indeed a "piece of rubber" stuck to the wing, and it's definite that the Ferraris were lacking grip. Both cars were clearly pushing wide at corners that Michelin runners were able to hug at the apex. whether these two observations are related... that's the question. I'd say it's a combination of compromised weight distrubition in the F2004M, & Bridgestone lacking the amount of data & input that Michelin has had to develop the new harder tires. So the F2005 may only be a partial fix. Schumacher's lap times testing the new car this week will be interesting...

 

Look, bottom line it is impossible to drive a car without tires.

Bridgestone is Ferrari's tire development partner. So if Ferrari win then Bridgestone win, and if Ferrari lose then Bridgestone loses. No one like to lose and no one loses on purpose.

Bridgestone stepped up to the plate in 2003. Ferrari and Bridgestone will rise to the challenge again. Its a team effort!

 

It looks to me like the tire wear rules really seem to favor the guy running out front in the clean air. All of the aero taken away by the rule changes has been regained by the engineers so the dirty air issues continue.

Bearing in mind that Malaysia was the hottest GP ever, it probably exaggerated the gap between B'Stone and Michelin, since historically speaking Mich. has been better in hotter weather. Proof of this is that Barrichello did drive through the field to finish 2nd in the unseasonable cool weather of Melbourne. (BTW, re: RB in Sepang, and chunk of rubber on the most aerodynamically sensitive part of the car can make a huge difference, especially when the issue snowballs as is the case with a poorly balanced car on a single set of tires)

Separate from the tire wear regulations is the fact that Bridgestone and Ferrari are at a tremendous disadvantage being compared to the 7 Michelin teams when it comes to testing and developing the tires.

The look on the Bridgestone engineers in qualifying said it all, they are in deep do-do.

 

Did anyone get DQ'd by post-race tire inspection? All it would take is one missing groove on one of the tires, and several of the cars seemed to be at that limit.