Pirelli 2013 ?

[dj_bytedisaster]

Now where does the word sabotage come in? Did Bernie or Pirelli know that the Red Bull would be harder on its tires before the season began? Anywhoo, they are not doing so bad. Red Bull have won two out of four races, which shows that performance can easily be gained by a few setup tweaks. I don't get what the whole drama is about, TBH.

On both occasions the two cars were running delta-times for sizable portions of the race, so in essence they made the tires work by not running as fast as they could have. Especially at Bahrain it was plainly visible. Vettel, who could pace himself, because the opposition had graciously cooked their tires (Rosberg) or just plainly fallen apart (Ferrari) made his tires work, while Mark, who actually had to race people spent quite a few laps of the race with destroyed tires, which contributed to his abysmal result.
Hembery recebntly admitted (after a similar claim from RB) that the RB car has so much more downforce than the other cars that it overloads the tires in the corners, especially with the flimsyfied tires of 2013 and that strenghening them to withstand the lateral forces of a RB in a corner would lead to them winning just about every race. If a supplier, who teams are forced to use with no chance to switch to an alternative says, that they know their product hampers certain cars, but they're not going to change them, lest these certain cars would win too much, in my opinion it constitutes distortion of competition or just plain ol' sabotage.
The main problem is, that back in the day, when testing wasn't a naughty word yet and we had more than one supplier, tires were designed to satisfy the cars they were going to be strapped to, while these days you design a car and if you have bad luck, Pirelli comes up with comedy tires that are overloaded by your car. I consider that a ridiculous situation.
This is also compounded by the fact that recently suspicions surfaced in the media (link is German only, sorry) that McLaren's and Sauber's current problems may be down to substandard scaled-down tires provided by Pirelli for wind tunnel testing. Bernie is known to blatantly temper with the rules should someone become too successful and Pirelli are whoring themselves as a tool for that very purpose.

Whose fault is it if Michelin came up with a better tyre in 2005?

For no apparent reason in 2005 tire changes were banned. If I remember 2004 correctly, the Michelin's were longer lasting than the Bridgestones, with the latter having a slight edge in the grip department. So by demanding that tire suppliers design ultra long lived tires this rule change clearly disadvantaged Bridgestone in 2005 and since Ferrari, the team that had utterly dominated F1 since 1999/2000, was the only top-team on Bridgestone, you'd have to come up with some really creative theory to come to any other conclusion than this rule change was designed to thwart Ferrari.
The only thing that this ridiculous rule change lead to was the Indy debacle and Kimi's shunt at the Nürburgring.

[Knock-on]

DJ. What teams had to make 4 stops?

[dj_bytedisaster]

Button and Rosberg had to make 4 stops.

[henners88]

Hembery recebntly admitted (after a similar claim from RB) that the RB car has so much more downforce than the other cars that it overloads the tires in the corners, especially with the flimsyfied tires of 2013 and that strenghening them to withstand the lateral forces of a RB in a corner would lead to them winning just about every race. If a supplier, who teams are forced to use with no chance to switch to an alternative says, that they know their product hampers certain cars, but they're not going to change them, lest these certain cars would win too much, in my opinion it constitutes distortion of competition or just plain ol' sabotage.

This to me sounds like the spirit of competition. If Red Bull have designed a car that carries so much down-force it ruins the tyres too quickly, then I fail to see how that is Pirelli's fault. Why should Pirelli be bullied into changing the specifications of their supplied tyres just so one team can run away and win every event and at their request? Every team is getting the same spec of tyre and it is their job to adapt their car to best suit the regulations. This reminds me very much of the Bridgestone Ferrari era where Ferrari dictated how they wanted the tyres to behave and even at one stage had a totally different spec to the other Bridgestone supplied teams.

Pirelli might know they are supplying a tyre that hampers certain teams setups, but they also know there are teams on the grid that don't have the advantage Red Bull have at certain races too. So what though, that's racing and all Red Bull are doing now is doing what every successful team does when they feel they haven't quite got that edge consistently. They throw their toys out of the pram. The tyres are not brilliant and I hope they soon return to the type of racing where teams can push, but we have what is requested. Its not Pirelli's fault and indeed they have proven they can produce the type of tyre many fans want to see.

[dj_bytedisaster]

This to me sounds like the spirit of competition. If Red Bull have designed a car that carries so much down-force it ruins the tyres too quickly, then I fail to see how that is Pirelli's fault. Why should Pirelli be bullied into changing the specifications of their supplied tyres just so one team can run away and win every event and at their request? Every team is getting the same spec of tyre and it is their job to adapt their car to best suit the regulations. This reminds me very much of the Bridgestone Ferrari era where Ferrari dictated how they wanted the tyres to behave and even at one stage had a totally different spec to the other Bridgestone supplied teams.

Unless we have completely different understandings of F1...
Wasn't the whole point of F1 - since at least the late 70s - to build a car with maximum possible downforce? Since when has that changed to building the car with just low enough downforce to fit the tires, especially considering that with so few testing available it is a case of pin the tail on the donkey for the teams. As it is at the moment, RB and I would hazard a guess Ferrari, too have to lower the available downforce to fit the tires that are not fit for the intended purpose.
The Ferrari/Bridgestone situation was, as it should be. The supplier gave the teams what they want, not what Bernie thinks shall be enough for the peasantry. Back in those day we had the chance of seeing Schumacher duking it out with Kimi and Montoya right on the bleeding edge. What we get these days are historic car rallys with cars trying to hit a pre-determined lap time as accurately as possible. If I want that, I actually watch a historic car rally.
The racing was sort of exciting at Bahrain, but most of those who did battle paid for it with crippling tire degradation, while those in old-man-in-a-Volvo mode went without problems and could cruise away into the distance in eco-mode.

Pirelli might know they are supplying a tyre that hampers certain teams setups, but they also know there are teams on the grid that don't have the advantage Red Bull have at certain races too. So what though, that's racing and all Red Bull are doing now is doing what every successful team does when they feel they haven't quite got that edge consistently. They throw their toys out of the pram. The tyres are not brilliant and I hope they soon return to the type of racing where teams can push, but we have what is requested. Its not Pirelli's fault and indeed they have proven they can produce the type of tyre many fans want to see.

RB are po'ed, because they built what looks like the best car according to the standards that have been in F1 since the late 70s. Problem is, along comes Pirelli and changes the rules of the game mid-competition. So instead of building the best car you can, you now build one that is just slow enough in the corners to no destroy a substandard supplier product. That's ridiculous. I can't imagine that too many fans thought "Oh I want tires that disallow drivers to push the car to the limits anymore". Most, who think that the current tires are good for the sport, are secretly just glad that it prevents another year of RB domination. But this is F1, cut-throat competition and not politically correct, equal opportunity, non-competitive Waldorf school. Those who built the best car should win the races, not those, who manage to go just slow enough to not destroy the tires. There was nothing wrong with the late 2012 tires. They fixed something that wasn't broken and broke it even more in the process and if I recall correctly, the 'more aggressive approach' was a decision by Pirelli, not something the teams requested.

[henners88]

My understanding of F1 is that the regulations are never the same year on year. Regardless of what happened in the 70's we have tyre regulations where tyres no longer last 50 laps. Red Bull have produced a great car that doesn't always suit one significant component. That's their problem and I say that without laughing too hard.

[Knock-on]

Button and Rosberg had to make 4 stops.

Indeed, 7 drivers made 4 stops for tyres although it's worth pointing out that all 7 used the medium Tyres a minimum of twice. It's also worth pointing out that of the drivers that only made 2 stops (Kimi and PdR), they both opted for Med, Hard, Hard completing a maximum of 23 and 22 laps on them respectivley. So, in a 57 lap race, the optimum pit strategy was either a 2 or 3 stopper. The highest placed 4 stopper was Nico and I guess the reason he 4 stopped rather than Lewis's 3 stopper ws because he burnt them up.

So, we have lots of different stratagies which is what the FIA tasked Pirelli to do. Red Bull, Lotus and Ferrari seem to be getting the best performance out of them and the other teams (FI / Merc) are getting closer.

McLaren haven't got the hang of them at all and it's up to them to get to grips with the Pirelli's. There are regulations in F1 and performance barriers and RB are the closest team to the optimum package.

What I don't like is that you have a tyre that most of the teams are developing to, and they want to maintain consistency to do this while one team seem to be able to elbow Pirelli to modifying the tyres to better suit them.

[AndyL]

What else is there to say? Apparently, there were some issues with Massa, Hamilton and another car's hard compound rear tires coming apart in Malaysia and Bahrain.

Only Massa I think, Hamilton's failure was with a medium tyre IIRC.

[dj_bytedisaster]

What I don't like is that you have a tyre that most of the teams are developing to, and they want to maintain consistency to do this while one team seem to be able to elbow Pirelli to modifying the tyres to better suit them.

You pretty much summed up what's wrong with them. Teams develop to the tires. That's fundamentally wrong. Pirelli delivers a component of substandard quality and the teams have to adapt the cars. That's putting the cart before the horse. They were tasked to spice up racing, but they practically disabled it. In all four races so far most drivers were engaged in consistency runs, rather than going fast. That's not racing that's a farce.
The low point was China with drivers being told not to fight back, when someone closed in on fresher tires and cars dawdling around, barely beating GP2 lap times. If that's the sort of racing you like, I'll invite you over to ze Fatherland in late August and you can watch me doing consistency runs in a 1982 Merc in the Neaderthal rally around Ratingen.

[henners88]

You pretty much summed up what's wrong with them. Teams develop to the tires. That's fundamentally wrong. Pirelli delivers a component of substandard quality and the teams have to adapt the cars. That's putting the cart before the horse. They were tasked to spice up racing, but they practically disabled it. In all four races so far most drivers were engaged in consistency runs, rather than going fast. That's not racing that's a farce.
The low point was China with drivers being told not to fight back, when someone closed in on fresher tires and cars dawdling around, barely beating GP2 lap times. If that's the sort of racing you like, I'll invite you over to ze Fatherland in late August and you can watch me doing consistency runs in a 1982 Merc in the Neaderthal rally around Ratingen.

You're trying to spin what others are saying now. Neither Knock-on or myself have suggested this is the type of racing we want to see. the discussion here is about how each of us understands the current regulations.

Who do you personally blame for the tyre situation, the FIA or Pirelli? You recently said Pirelli were rubbish and you wouldn't put them on your road car on principle, so do you exactly understand the situation?

Tyres are a consumable component that all teams have at their disposal. Its always been a gamble when new tyre compounds have been released, but with extensive testing teams had the advantage to understand the tyres better in previous seasons. Now we have a tyre that all team knew would be fast wearing and unpredictable at certain GP's, yet one team are complaining because their car carries too much down-force and they have lost an advantage they would have had in say the 2010 season. Red Bull need to work on adapting what they have because the tyres are not going to change in their favour any time soon. What Ferrari did all those years ago was not the correct way at all. They were developing tyre compounds to suit their own cars whilst holding an unfair advantage over fellow customers/opponents. That is as artificial as what we have today. I'm pretty sure those whining about the tyres are happy when their team/driver wins on them of course.