2015 Belgium Grand Prix

[Nitrodaze]

You should drink less. Here is what the teams had to say about Hembery's 'exemplary' PR response:

It was the deliverance of the response that was of interest, it didn't mean that everyone would agree with him. For a chap under pressure this weekend, he handled himself with dignity and confidence. Not alot of people can handle such a situation with such finesse. But read my post again you would see that l am in agreement with Ferrari.

[Duncan]

Any idea what was up with the virtual safety car? Hamilton was complaining that Rosberg seemed to have magically caught up during the VSC period, but there was no follow-up. Shortly after that radio transmission was played, there was an on-screen graphic showing gap deltas for those two for lap 22, showing that Rosberg made up something like 1.25 seconds during sector 2 of that lap.

What was that about? Was lap 22 under VSC, or the lap immediately after?

[The Black Knight]

Donkey of the race goes to the Williams pit crew.

Vettel angry with Pirelli tyres. The general consensus is that Ferrari eeked it out to far and paid the price. That Tyre disintegrated after 27 laps, roughly 189 miles. When you look at it from this perspective, then you gotta ask, would it not be safer for the tire to drop performance dastically but keep its structure in tact rather than disintegrate at speed. While Ferrari and Vettel may have gambled and lost, Vettel does have a point. Tyres blowing up at speed should not be acceptable. While the FIA mandate is for marginal tyres with short race life, Vettel is saying there should be a window of warning to the driver that disintegration is eminent before the onset of failure.
While l agree Ferrari took a gamble that was not going to work out, the tyre ought to have a number of stages of performance level drops to indicate to the driver the phase in the lifecycle of the tyre they are at. The basis of Vettel's argument was that the tyre had good performance up to the point that it disintegrated. It would seem the famous cliff is no longer there as it use to be.
Whichever way you look at this, it is safe to say that the drivers are showing signs that they are fed up with marginal tyres, not Pirelli per se.

I have to add that Pirelli's Pembury put up a supreme demonstration of a PR response to the criticism. It was cool unflustered, uncritical and unwavering confidence in the absence of fault by pirelli. Simply exemplary. If you missed it, l highly recommend you go watch it again. The response is one that l shall be watching repeatedly for a very long time as there is much to learnt from it.

Pirelli have come out and said that they advised two years ago that the tires should be limited on mileage - approximately 50% grand prix distance on the prime tire and 30% for the options. To me this is a cop out from Pirelli given that they said the end of tire life in Spa was 40 laps. If the teams rejected their decision it is then up to Pirelli to continue to apply these metrics to each race moving forward and then blame the teams for it, not give a 40 lap figure for the end of tire life and say "Well, we told you so two years ago". Either that or they could have produced a better tire. Plus, given that the cars have far more performance now than they had at the start of 2014 then I suspect that these metrics would have to have been adjusted further downwards, so why Pirelli gave a 40 lap figure for EOL is beyond me.

I'm completely with Vettel and Ferrari on this one. I do think Rosbergs tire blowout on Friday was a cut from an external source. It certainly looked like it. I don't believe that the incidents are related because Rosberg's tires were so much younger, just that both happened to occur on the same weekend. This is racing and tire blowouts will always happen but it should not happen as it did in the case of Vettel.

Moving forward, if Pirelli are unable to address this issue with the teams, I wonder if this will affect their tenure in the sport vs Michelin's. If the teams are really getting fed up of marginal tires, then maybe it's time to change it. I don't like the Pirelli tires, and never have done, but they have done what the sport asked of them and taken an awful lot of slack in the process because of it with very little testing under their belts. I give them kudos for that.

Something has to be done though as we don't want another incident like Japan last year where a magnificent young man and an amazing talent lost his life.

[The Black Knight]

It was the deliverance of the response that was of interest, it didn't mean that everyone would agree with him. For a chap under pressure this weekend, he handled himself with dignity and confidence. Not alot of people can handle such a situation with such finesse. But read my post again you would see that l am in agreement with Ferrari.

I agree that Paul Hembrey acted with class and he has always done so as well. He's a fine representative for Pirelli.

What needs to happen here is for Pirelli and the teams to meet and have an open honest discussion. Pirelli can present their argument and the teams theirs. Lets not have any rash decisions made. Whatever the next step that needs to be made, it needs to be calculated and made in the interest of driver safety.

[jens]

I was away from the Internet for quite a few days and I actually forgot Belgian GP was on this weekend. I thought it may well have been on the next weekend, the end of August as per usual. Oh well, never mind. Sometimes good to live completely outside the "F1 box".

[Nitrodaze]

It is quite obvious actually, Pirelli need to bring the cliff back. And the cliff window need to be wide enough for the drivers to get back to the pits without tyre structure failure. The cliff window should reduce the effective grip of the tyres to a level that would force the driver to lower their speed to a level safe enough for the tyres to withstand the drive back to the pits. This characteristics need to be consistent across the tyres in the set fitted to the car. for instance, one rear tyre should not be cliffing while the other three are in the racing zone, this would be dangerous.

I think if marginal tyres is the way, then do it properly and safely. That said, l am a fan of Pirelli. I think they have done a difficult job admirably. It can't be easy making marginal tyres consistently as they have done. But it is clear that the marginal tyre days are approaching their end. Safety should not be operated as a Russian roullette.

[The Black Knight]

It is quite obvious actually, Pirelli need to bring the cliff back. And the cliff window need to be wide enough for the drivers to get back to the pits without tyre structure failure. The cliff window should reduce the effective grip of the tyres to a level that would force the driver to lower their speed to a level safe enough for the tyres to withstand the drive back to the pits. This characteristics need to be consistent across the tyres in the set fitted to the car. for instance, one rear tyre should not be cliffing while the other is in the racing zone, this would be dangerous.

I think if marginal tyres is the way, then do it properly and safely. That said, l am a fan of Pirelli. I think they have done a difficult job admirably. It can't be easy making marginal tyres consistently as they have done. But it is clear that the marginal tyre days are approaching their end. Safety should not be operated as a Russian roullette.

That's pretty unrealistic given the different nature of various tracks. The tires would have to be tailored for each circuit and with no guarantee of this consistency still across all 4 tires.

I don't agree with the cliff - never have. To be honest, I like Michelin's idea more than Pirelli and I found F1 far more interesting to watch when we had 24 cars flat out, balls to the wall the entire race, instead of gingerly making their way around for fear to hurt the tires most. There's is visually a speed difference in the cars now between these cars and the ones ten years ago which before usen't be the case.

[Big Ben]

The idea of making bad tyres on purpose is a preposterous one to begin with. To actually pretend they should fail in a certain way is even dumber. Just let them make the best tyres they can and that's that. As for Vettel, he is probably suing them right now.

[Nitrodaze]

The idea of making bad tyres on purpose is a preposterous one to begin with. To actually pretend they should fail in a certain way is even dumber. Just let them make the best tyres they can and that's that. As for Vettel, he is probably suing them right now.

The idea of marginal tyre is not as daft as some may think. It has really brought about some really interesting racing. Up until the fiasco at Silverstone in 2013, a controlled degradation of the tyre was evident. The onset of the cliff saw drivers slide about and drifted back the order as they nurse their car back to the pits. Since Silverstone 2013, it has been obvious that the characteristics of the tyre degradation has changed noticeably. Most noticeable is the so called cliff was not as punishing as it was post silverstone 2013.

Hence, it is not dumb, that is the way it was up to silverstone 2013. Silverstone marks an important demarcation because that was the last time there was a spate of tyre failures that resulted in open criticism of Pirelli.

Marginal tyres was a great experiment that did produce some great racing moments. Like most things in F1, its novelty is wearing thin and is clearly time to look beyond it. With Vettel, Hamilton and Alonso openly challenging its continued viability, one has to say a change is about to happen. The collective 8 championship titles of these individuals carrys alot of clout and it would be a mistake for the FIA and Pirelli to not take these voices seriously.

Negative tyre pubilicity such as this cannot be good for Pirelli's brand. If l was the CEO of Pirelli, l would definitely be cursing the day l signed up to the FIA's idea of marginal tyres.

[henners88]

The idea of making bad tyres on purpose is a preposterous one to begin with. To actually pretend they should fail in a certain way is even dumber. Just let them make the best tyres they can and that's that. As for Vettel, he is probably suing them right now.

If it is deemed Ferrari ignored advice from Pirelli on the suggested number of laps, then it could be Ferrari in hot water. No other teams were attempting a one stop strategy and nobody else had tyre de-laminations from pushing the tyres to 28 laps. Even the commentators were questioning if Ferrari were tempting disaster.

The tyres are what they are and they encourage pit stops to try and split up what is often processional racing. If teams try and stretch the advice they are given, they shouldn't let their drivers sulk in front of the cameras and blame the component. Spa is a long lap and known to be hard on tyres due to the amount of high speed corners. Ferrari shouldn't have taken the gamble, especially with the amount of info they already have on these tyres.