4 degrees of camber

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Originally Posted by SGWilko

Excessive camber = short term performance advantage against risk of tyre failure.

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and one that they obviously got right.

If this were McLaren and they'd run this much camber and unlike RBR hadn't asked if they could change their tyres or camber settings, we would potentially be here talking about how it was a master stroke and how great Button is in these sorts of conditions or whatever. IMHO this is just a cheap shot at RBR, take a shot at them for creating a potential issue and then wanting special dispensation to lessen the potential risk, but they took the risk and they won and they should get the credit for that. If it turns out that they were a lap or two away from a failure on Eau Rouge or something like that then they deserve to be criticised rather a lot, but we simply don't know.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

It matters not if it's illegal. They went beyond the physical limitations of the tyre. They knew what they were doing when they did it and tried to backtrack out of it. It was a stupid ****ing decision. Surely even you can see that?

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They didn't go beyond the physical limitations of the tyre. If they had the tyres would have failed. RBR took a calculated risk, crapped themselves and ended up winning.

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Originally Posted by SGWilko

Hypothetically then - IF one of their drivers had an accident, would they be free from legal action should the driver be harmed and his career shortened.....?

Again. if's here, but the point is they were lucky, but were they right to put the drivers at risk?

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The fact of the matter is that we don't know how far we were from seeing an accident. Were the RBR's on a razors edge? Or was it merely the tread which was suffering and was the construction of the tyre still sound? We simply don't know. I really would like to see if Pirelli or RBR come out and say anything about this.

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Originally Posted by Malbec

That is only said with hindsight.

Back at Indy 2005 not a single Michelin tyre actually failed IIRC. It was just that Michelin detected abnormally high wear rates and couldn't guarantee their safety beyond a few laps. Presumably given your stance on RBR and Pirellis you would have been for the Michelin shod teams to ignore Michelin's recommendations and run the race regardless?

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I think Ralf's tyre failed, and other Michelin runners suffered stress indictions that would have led to failure. The overall conclusion was that 6 laps was maximum achievable if going flat out on the final corner....

I may well be factually incorrect, but that is my recollection.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

and one that they obviously got right.

If this were McLaren and they'd run this much camber and unlike RBR hadn't asked if they could change their tyres or camber settings, we would potentially be here talking about how it was a master stroke and how great Button is in these sorts of conditions or whatever. IMHO this is just a cheap shot at RBR, take a shot at them for creating a potential issue and then wanting special dispensation to lessen the potential risk, but they took the risk and they won and they should get the credit for that. If it turns out that they were a lap or two away from a failure on Eau Rouge or something like that then they deserve to be criticised rather a lot, but we simply don't know.

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Well, no-one is slapping the McLaren boys or Lewis on the back for binning it by wearing down the tyres in China 2007, are they?

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Originally Posted by SGWilko

I think Ralf's tyre failed, and other Michelin runners suffered stress indictions that would have led to failre. The overall conclusion was that 6 laps was maximum achievable if going flat out on the final corner....

I may well be factually incorrect, but that is my recollection.

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That's how I remember it too. IMHO it's a different situation to what we were dealing with here. With the Michelin's at Indianapolis I think there was really a serious and almost inevitable risk of someone having a catastrophic failure at speed especially considering Ralph's failure AND the way Michelin looked at things and saw fit to ask if they could bring in new tyres for the weekend. I'm sure if Pirelli were that worried about a failure they would have made a LOT of noise and publicly "encouraged" RBR to change their settings and start from the pitlane.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

That's how I remember it too. IMHO it's a different situation to what we were dealing with here. With the Michelin's at Indianapolis I think there was really a serious and almost inevitable risk of someone having a catastrophic failure at speed especially considering Ralph's failure AND the way Michelin looked at things and saw fit to ask if they could bring in new tyres for the weekend. I'm sure if Pirelli were that worried about a failure they would have made a LOT of noise and publicly "encouraged" RBR to change their settings and start from the pitlane.

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Pirelli were concerned enough about the situation to fly in extra sets of front tyres to cope with the reduced life. Also I'm sure you know that Pirelli did indeed inform RBR that they should change the camber settings and start from the pitlane, something RBR refused?

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Originally Posted by Daniel

That's how I remember it too. IMHO it's a different situation to what we were dealing with here. With the Michelin's at Indianapolis I think there was really a serious and almost inevitable risk of someone having a catastrophic failure at speed especially considering Ralph's failure AND the way Michelin looked at things and saw fit to ask if they could bring in new tyres for the weekend. I'm sure if Pirelli were that worried about a failure they would have made a LOT of noise and publicly "encouraged" RBR to change their settings and start from the pitlane.

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In fairness to Michelin, the isolated incident at Indy (similar in fact to the Bridgestone failure at Turkey) was borne of a change to the surface and hence vastly increased grip of the circuit. Bridgestone (by dint of their sister firm Firestone) already had advance running on such a surface through its involvement with Indycar, Michelin were neither notified of the circuit being diamond cut, nor had they had any prior running on the new surface.

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Originally Posted by Malbec

Pirelli were concerned enough about the situation to fly in extra sets of front tyres to cope with the reduced life. Also I'm sure you know that Pirelli did indeed inform RBR that they should change the camber settings and start from the pitlane, something RBR refused?

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Maybe I didn't follow things as closely as some others, but Pirelli's words never seemed all that strong.

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Originally Posted by Malbec

Pirelli were concerned enough about the situation to fly in extra sets of front tyres to cope with the reduced life. Also I'm sure you know that Pirelli did indeed inform RBR that they should change the camber settings and start from the pitlane, something RBR refused?

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They would not have been allowed to use them though, would they - being limited to a certain amount of tyres for the entire weekend?