I am told by reliable sources that Renault will be announcing Robert Kubica as its lead driver in 2010 in the course of the next 24 hours. It is not clear who will partner him but it is unlikely to be Romain Grosjean, who has seemed completely out of his depth since he replaced Nelson Piquet Jr. It is clear that stepping into a new drive in F1 without any testing is much tougher than it might appear. Thus far the only drivers who seem to have emerged relatively unscatched from such manoeuvres are Tonio Liuzzi, who I think is massively under-rated, and Jaime Alguersuari, who replaced Sebastien Bourdais at Scuderia Toro Rosso. In cynical F1 terms his ability is deemed difficult to assess as the jury is still out on Sebastien Buemi, who came to F1 without much pedigree and looked good against the lacklustre Bourdais.
Of the others who have tried this year, no-one has escaped unscathed. Luca Badoer destroyed what little reputation he had when he stood in for the injured Felipe Massa and Badoer’s replacement Giancarlo Fisichella has looked distinctly average, underlining the belief that he is not the driver that once he was.
The explanation for this seems to be in the way the tyres work this year. The Bridgestones react differently on each car and finding the tricks that make them work is not easy. Some drivers can do it at some tracks and not at others. Even World Championship challenger Jenson Button has struggled with this.
What is hard to understand in all of this is what is in it for Bridgestone. The company pays a chunk of money to be the official supplier of tyres in F1. As a result it wins all the races but that is no great achievement against no opposition. In such a situation the tendency is for the tyres to be ignored completely by the media, unless things go wrong. Who, for example, writes a good word about a spark plug when it wins races? It is only ever mentioned if it goes wrong…
Bridgestone seems to have concluded that it is better to have people talking about the tyres rather than not talking about them – even if a lot of the references are negative.
“The only thing worse than being talked about,” said Oscar Wilde, “is not being talked about.”
I was surprised Bridgestone was able to modify the gap between the compounds midway thru the season. There is a line of thought that this has hurt RBR in particular…
Is there any change to tyre regs next year Joe?
Only tyre size I think
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Joe,
One thing that seems to happen all too frequently is that one team experiences performance variations on the same Bridgestone compounds during a race. If the car’s performance deteriorates, or improves, using two sets of the same compound it would seem to indicate an issue with quality control at Bridgestone. Of course, this presumes there have been no other changes on the car.
I wonder why no one has publicly asked this question? You hear it every race, “…the car ran poorly (or better) on my second set of prime tyre..”
As the race wears on, performance on the same compound should actually improve as the track rubbers in even further. While there are myriad causes for performance change from variations in track temperature to changes in the car itself, these variations are too frequent to not have a root in the tyre consistency.
This goes beyond the racing luck category.
I think Kimi must also massively underrated, as even if Fisi is no longer the driver he once was, it doesnt really make sense that he suddenly goes from the driver who almost won at Spa to the Luca Badoer level as soon as he puts the red overalls on. Therefore logically the Ferrari must be a real dog and Kimi’s skill is making up a huge chunk of the deficit. Either that is true, or Badeor is not really that bad, or the Force India is streets ahead of anything else on the grid (..at least at Spa..) … But the rookies issue seem to be quite pressing if taken into context the effect it will have on the future of the sport..
Excellent post Joe.
The driver ability conundrum is a curious one. As you mention it’s tough right now for anyone to come into F1 without testing, yet you couldn’t say Bourdais was a rookie. Given his US pedigree, as well as the amount of time he had in F1 it’s strange that he wasn’t able to do better.
I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of Liuzzi. He was very underrated before when he lost his Red Bull drive, even though he was far more diplomatic than Scott Speed (remember him?)
I can’t say any of the new, young guns have impressed me so far. They all look out of their depth in my view.
And it’s sad to see Fisichella struggling so badly, after doing such a great job in the Force India car.
Moving on to the tyre issue. Could it be that Bridgestone are, if not deliberately, by default manufacturing inconsistency into their tyres? How often do we hear drivers telling us how one set of tyres didn’t perform the same way as the previous set?
If there is anything in this, then Bridgestone should be heavily criticised if not penalised. That inconsistency, albeit the same for everyone, turns the sport into a lottery, where only those with supreme sensitivity to changes in the chemical make up of the rubber, have an advantage.
I’m guessing there are no rules regarding the consistency of tyre performance?
The only thing worse than being talked about,” said Oscar Wilde, “is not being talked about.”
I wish I’d said that Joe….
I think Bridgestone’s whole program is insane. They put green strips on tyres to highlight environmental friendliness but instead of putting them on the harder more durable compound they put them on the softer compound which at some races has been chewed up and spat out in a few laps.
If I was running Bridgestone I would have taken all compounds to all races and let the drivers run what they like. If they want to run one compound all weekend so be it. If they want to start on one then switch to another that’s OK too. Iff someone wants to run a different compound on every corner that should be OK too. So instead of hearing constant complaints about Bridgestone supplying useless rubber we would constantly be hearing about different compound choices and what clever tyre strategy the winner used. It’s not rocket science but it is beyond Bridgestone.
The thing is that when Michelin were in F1 I don’t remember people having these tyre issues half as much. When ever a team bolted on their rubber it seemed to work right out of the box no problem. While with Bridgestone some teams can’t get them to work for them (Renault have never performed well since losing Michelin tyres and never really got the Bridgestones to work). There were more exciting races when we had two tyre manufactures in F1 and more passing due to the differences and ranges in the tyres from track to track.
As for Kubica i am pleased he is going to Renault and I think they really do need two good drivers for a change which will be paramount to them returning to the front in my opinion.
[...] paddock insiders have been predicting the switch for days and have informed the reading public that the announcement will be made Tuesday, French newspaper Le Figaro is reporting that Robert Kubica will drive for French Renault F1 team [...]
I think Bridgestone (like the inexperienced F1 drivers) appear out of their depth. Its incredible that all we seem to hear from the drivers is how the tyres have messed-up their race or qualifying. This in turn seems to ruin the spectacle of battles-that-should-have-been for us.
How can Bridgestone really be benefitting from all this negative vibe from all the drivers the moment they step out of their cars? Bring back multiple tyre suppliers and competition, isn’t that what its all about.
Two tire companies would be good only if each companies tires were available to all teams. That would make it difficult for the engineers to have to match a specific tire for a specific track. Would be more interesting though.
Plus if all teams would pick their tires from a random lottery each Thursday before a race, there would be no commercial preferences to the top teams.
However you could expect the complaining to be even worse than now!!!
There are two factors that have been mentioned above that really speak to the issues with the tires:
1) The consistency from set-to-set of a single compound should seemingly be much better than it is.
2) The competitors should be able to freely choose from the available compounds.
All these little twists to the rules at best add a possibly interesting unknown to the knowledgable fan (e.g. Driver X is going long on the middle stint so they can minimize their time on the crappy tire at the end… etc) The casual fan likely finds this confusing and I think it detracts from the direct purity of the competition.
F1 is full of this stuff right now… Q3′s which are had to assess until the fuel loads are released later etc. I really did like it when there was an hour for qualifying and drivers just tried to set the best time. Period.
Thankfully, it seems at least the qualifying fuel load issue will disappear next year.
Now if only all those changes to the cars this year supposedly to make them able to run closer together and pass more easily had worked…
who’s fault it is that the tyres are rubbish with a tiny operating window. is it bridgestones for the inability to make a decent tyre, or is that at the request of the FIA, in order to add ‘excitement’ (much like the fantastic two compound rule).
i really can’t see the point of being the single supplier in a race series. like you say, where’s the reference? they can hardly claim it shows any technology, innovation or performance if there is no competition, and the only thing you hear about the tyres is that they are graining, going off after a few laps, overheating or are difficult to get heat into. also, the drivers were complaining that they only get limited tyre sets, which resulted in most of them waiting in the garage on friday as they didn’t want to ruin their race tyres, and they were sorry to the fans that came on friday and sat out in the rain for the entire day, but there was nothing they could do. bridgestone answered that they can’t afford to bring more tyres to the races? pathetic.
[...] with the media. Nick Heidfeld has said that the tyres could be “ten times better”. Joe Saward expanded: The Bridgestones react differently on each car and finding the tricks that make them work is not [...]