Wow! But actually not all that surprising, they have been playing with that switch for a while. Although their qualifying improved in the last few races mostly due to the tires, the tires also let them down during the races as best shown in Shanghai. The Bridgestone tire is made for the Ferrari, the Michelin tire is more made for the entire field. Understandable that Sauber switched. Also goes to show, that the Sauber car is indeed very different from the Ferrari and not just a clone of last year's Ferrari.
Either that or Sauber are stupid Won't be long before the Michelin tyre is the sole supplier ... writing is on the wall. Pete
They may regret it during next year's "two sets per weekend" rules. Anyone collect stats on racing flat tires this year? (Didn't Michelin have a lot of shredded tires last year?) I think they're either going to have to ban carbon fiber or grant lots of waivers to get cars to the finish line. That, or borrow the Monster Garage NASCAR street sweeper.
I remember reading a week or so ago that the Korean tyre company Kumho is thinking about entering F1. I can only hope that more tyre manufacture joins F1.
I can only hope Bridgestone will leave and Michelin will become the sole supplier. Not that I particularly care for Michelin, but F1 is way better off with only one tire manufacturer. A lot of the improved lap times are down to the silly tire war, which only results in the cars getting too fast, which in return calls for legislation of other body parts. Once there is only one tire manufacturer, everybody gets the same hard compound and we can focus on what really matters again: The cars and the drivers. Remember: Tires never win a race, they only loose them.
This just overheard...Luca to Peter: "So, you still want my motors Peter ? Well what will you have to offer in terms of data..."
I am having a difficult time understanding your logic. To me, tyres are just as important to the whole car as any other part of the team. F1 is about free competition and to innovate. If we are going to limit tyres, than why not limit the horsepower while we are at it. We can even go as far as limiting the series to one engine manufacture only as in Ford/Cosworth, then we will just be watching another CART racing on those sunday mornings.
I'll try and answer this one Over the last few years we have had tyres influence the quality of the race to a very large degree. Why?, because of the heat up times or ability in the rain, etc. This has ruined an otherwise good race. In the end the performance of a tyre is the most important thing. You can have 100 hp advantage, the best handling car, the best driver, etc. ... but if your tyre is graining you are SLOW. If everybody had been racing on the same tyres over the last few years we would have had much, much closer racing ... because the time it took for Michelin to get up to speed and make a tyre worth spitting at was just too fncken long. God only knows what that company was doing but it has taken them something like 3 years to catch up to Bridgestone ... how anybody from their F1 department can hold their head up with pride is beyond me ... they just plan sucked at their job and made cars like McLaren, Williams, etc. look a lot worse than they really were ... and helped give the WC to Ferrari. When we were asked by the FIA to comment on F1 ... this was the direction of my comments, ie. kick Michelin up the arse, don't blame Ferrari. Thus in conclusion while we all like technology and gaining an advantage, having a tyre advantage is just plain too larger an advantage and leaves little room for close racing, let alone racing. In better times a tyre advantage might be great to watch, but with the Ferrari dominance (concrats Ferrari) and NO other good car running on Bridgestones, we have been watching the Ferrari competitors struggle while their Michelin tyres decided to be tyres or just lumps of black rubber. - Just imagine how close 2003 would have been with McLaren on Bridgestones? - Just imagine how 2002 would NOT have been a runaway Ferrari year if the Michelins did not suck so bad that I would not have put their F1 tyre on my Toyota people mover. F1 cannot afford to have 1 of the 2 tyre manufacturers stuffing up, that reduces the field by half before the race has even started. Pete
I do not and can not agree with artificial competition, especially not in F1. Tyres are part of the game, yes it is true that Bridgestone has dedicated to Ferrari as of the past few years, there are no rules against it. Let's not forget that there were times when Michellins were superior to Bridgestones too. Also, nobody is stopping Michelin from doing the same with McLaren, William or Renault. In fact, if I recall correctly, Michelin lured McLaren over to Bridgestone in 2000? McLaren and William were suppose to be sharing and developing tyres together. If our thinking follows he previous trend, you will probably disagree with me on the following. Tyre manufactures wants to win, they want to use F1 as their showcase and billboard to advertise. If you allow them the freedom to creat and to innovate, the sport can only gain from that. Much in the same way as an engine supplier, aka Honda, Mercedes and BMW. Just imagine Goodyear, Kuhmo, Bridgestone, Michellin and Pirelli all devided in the field evenly, each only have to supports 2-3 teams and their resources will not be so stretched. When one team finds the edge, it is up to the others to try to catch up and surpass, not tie the winning team's hands together in order to make the season more interesting and competitive.
Pete already made a perfect case from a racing perspective, better than I could have argued ever. So here I add some more of my rationale aside from the racing aspect: - Once you have more than one tire manufacturer an insane arms race starts which costs gazillions of dollars spent in testing and ends up in everybody dropping lap times. But as a spectator I don't care whether they do a lap a second quicker or not. What I do care is that they fight each other. But an arms race drives the costs up and some smaller teams out of business. Also safety takes a back seat as the speed goes up in the turns. Give everybody a standard tire and their speeds will drop. You won't have to add chicanes or compromise car design. - I just don't care about tires. Not in racing nor on my car. Pirelli and Michelin are sexy names, but that's about it. I love my Ferrari and the sound of its engine and want the car to stay on the road, but I rarely drive my car at the limit and don't give a hoot about the tires its on. I believe it has now Goodyear's, but I'm not even sure. Couldn't tell you what it before that. Now this might be an emotional statement some might hard to understand, but just ask marketing folks and for the most part this is how people in general feel too: We can get emotional over the drivers, the engines, the manufacturers but rarely does anybody care about the tires. Which is why some marketing folks (not me) coined the phrase "Tires never win a race, they only loose them.". Meaning, if your tires blows up like it happened to Mansell, everybody will blame the tire manufacturer. But if a driver wins the title, nobody will give much credit to the tires. Don't believe me? I'm sure you can recall the titles from Senna or Prost or Mansell, and I'm sure on what cars they got them. But do you remember on what tires? Finally: I want Ferrari to win the race and the title based on their supreme car and engine design and because of their brilliant drivers. But not because on what the car rides on.
I just don't care about tires. Not in racing nor on my car. Pirelli and Michelin are sexy names, but that's about it. I love my Ferrari and the sound of its engine and want the car to stay on the road, but I rarely drive my car at the limit and don't give a hoot about the tires its on. I believe it has now Goodyear's, but I'm not even sure. Couldn't tell you what it before that. TOTALY AGREE....100%
I guess the main point that we disagree is that you do not think and feel that tyre manufactures are part of the team. And to me, tyres ARE part of the car and hence, essential part of the team. Tyres improve and have a impact on every aspect of a car, and that ranges from a race car to just about anything that uses a tyre. They evolve along with the rest of the team. I feel that F1 is so much more complicated now that you can no longer just slap a set of Michellins onto a F2004 and expected to go faster than cars such as Williams or McLarens that are designed with Michellins in mind. Very much in the same way that drivers of different eras should not be compared as the rules and nature of the Formula One has changed and evolved through time. And I believe in team spirit, and I do not believe in putting the blame on one aspect if any car/team for races won or lost. Each team or manufacture decides who they want to be associated with and that means through good times or bad times. In 2003, I was upset that Bridgestone was not more on par with Michellin, but at no point was I upset at the team or mad at Michellin/William/McLaren. I just wanted Bridgestone/Ferrari package to improve. And I do not think it is fair to put the safety issue squarely on the shoulders of tyre manufacture, unless you are saying that teams/drivers/cars/engines/aerodynamics/brake systems etc. has not improved for the past 5 years. There are many road cars that have improved their ride quality/performance numbers due to tyres on the car, and rightfully so, that is progress. You can alter the behavior of a car by going with different size tyres/wheels, width, air pressure etc. All part of the game in order to squeeze out every ounce of performance out of a car. All-season high performance tyres did not exist 10 years ago, and if it wasn't for the Michellin Pilot-A/S I have on my car, I would not have been able to make it from point A to point B in time on countless occuations. So to me, I DO care about what tyres are on my car. The last thing I need is to drive through a snowy mountain path with my entire family onboard with summer-only high performance tyres that turns into a extremly expensive set of hockey puck when it gets cold. Finally, I feel that Ferrari won because they have the best package, just the same way that William-Honda won instead of Lotus-Honda. I guess the only middle ground we can find in this topic would be to have one car use Bridgestone and the other Michellin within a team. And the drivers can alternate from one race to another, but than again, I am sure that will just open up another whole can of worms.
Anthony, I see the logic in your arguments. No question. But they won't change how I feel and think about tire manufacturers. I guess we agree to disagree. I think for the sport of F1 it'd be better to have only one supplier, the though choice however is to decide who that should be since we live in world with more or less free economics.
That's what I love about this board and people like you and PSk, I can always trust your point of views, no matter if I agree or disagrees with you I guess I prefer diversity among teams and their make-up instead of just having one manufacture cornering the market. To me, healthy competition is the driving force behind evolution.
I definitely agree and support that comment, Anthony ... but sometimes this direction is negative to the sport side of motorsport, ie. Michelin or say BAR find a massive technological advantage and win every single race by laps until the other teams catch on. One final comment, over time thanks to healthy competition (and ofcourse Michelin's ultimate aim to look good in F1) eventually we get a very close playing field and close competition on the track returns. We see it now that Michelin has caught up to most degree and the tyres are much more even, hopefully next year other teams will have caught up to Ferrari in the overall package area and we can watch vintage pure motorracing on the track with the best car/driver winning ... which hopefully will be Ferrari Pete
