I guess those who have shouted loudest about Pirelli in recent weeks will be less than happy with the news that the Italian tyre firm has decided not to use the latest spec tyres in Canada. It might have been better to have kept their mouths shut… Still, keeping the tyres as they have been all year is a much fairer way of doing business, rather than being pressured into making changes to please the whingeing teams.
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joeblogsf1 
RiiiIght!
World champions driving at 80% of their and car potential, waving competition by to save the tyres and produce the calculated lap/race time.
Just what we all want to see 🙂
Reverse grids and 30 min F1 races, anybody?
Wearing red noses and sparkly jackets?
With 17 of them to a car inexplicably.
Didn’t Kimi and Alonso put it 90-95%? I guess that means they have less potential than your average driver 😉
I don’t get this ‘80% of potential’ business. The tyres are just one part of the car that influence performance, an ultimate performance is determiend by all the factors taken together. If that lap time is all that can be achieved in that configuration, then that’s it – there isn’t another 20% to come. Sure, they could go faster on different tyres, but so thy could with more revs, less aero restrictions, etc…….
Exactly, Steve!
Precisely, and if your car and driver are better at using tyres they can drive faster, challenge harder, and will likely win.
Drivers appear to have abdicated their responsibility for looking after their machines, and instead rely far too much on what the engineers and the folks back in the factory are telling them to do. All this ‘driving to delta’ cobblers is simply the drivers admitting that they can’t work these things out for themselves. Might as well be RC. Perhaps rather than fiddling with tyres we should be demanding a ban on radio communication and car to pit telemetry. Pit boards and hand signals only. If these are the best drivers in the world then let’s see it.
Absolutely! I was shocked when I read the chronological list of pit-to-driver instructions during the Monaco GP, including target lap times, turn-to-turn throttle usage, reminders (!), etc. Makes the drivers like a buncha’ brainless robots. Ban the radios (except for emergencies), and back to pit boards – PLEASE!
Can you show us a link where you found that list of instructions please?
I’d rather the drivers battle it out in this scenario rather than Adrian Neweys Aero determining championships year after year, essentially what you had was Adrian providing his driver (Helmut took care of Webber) with a consistent for examples sake lets say 10% advantage, therefore the other drivers are essentially handicapped and can only hope to achieve 90% of what Red Bull can, so there’s your season pre-determined. Perhaps that’s why they’re not a big fan of variables being introduced. (In fairness to them if you’ve engineered an advantage you LOBBY to keep it)
At least these upcoming races are not predictable for the fans, better for the sport. Not a fan of drivers just running at the front and picking up WDC’s without battling. (we’ll have start using asterisks to denote excessively ‘car dominant’ championships, M.S deserves a couple during Ferrari’s recent reign)
Don’t worry good old Montreal always produces a good race, top 3 in my opinion.
Just as you predicted, albeit by implication. Reminds me when, as a very young engineer, I designed prestressed floors adjoining insitu slabs halfway through the construction and had it stamped on by the MD of the client because she hated last-minuted design revisions.
This move or lack of same, is being interpreted elsewhere as an admission that it was tyres for Canada that were tested by Merc/Pirelli. Quite how Pirelli could run the car “themselves” to comply with apparent made up on the spot rules from the FIA is a mystery, I am pretty sure that without team support they would not even get it started. Obviously trying to start at too low a temperature or before the oil was circulated could write the engine off in a second. (or at lest require a rebuild. Then what happens if an engine or gearbox is broken during a tyre test? Do the team get a free replacement?
Pirelli should walk away, they have been treated appallingly by, well, everyone! Including the gutter press, who would not know a tyre from a tuba.
Oh yes and please come back Max!
Dear God. No.
Seconded!
🙂
Come on, Rpaco, don’t be ridiculous. I’m sure what is meant by ‘running’ is not the mechanical part of actually putting the car on the track, but rather what is done re tires during the test; camber, pressures, temperatures, etc. Of course the team will ‘run’ the car. To do otherwise would be absurd and no team would allow that.
The rules are quite clear that the car has to be engineered by Pirelli. The team supplies car and driver and the mechanics. All engineering decisions are to be left to Pirelli.
Except If the FIA agreed
rpaco, running a test and running a car are two different things. Running a test means deciding what tyres to use, how fast to drive where, what aspects of handling they want to concentrate on, etc. Running the car simply means starting her up, getting her moving, and keeping her moving until the test engineer says stop.
It is perfectly possible for Pirelli to have been running the test with only technical support and a driver from Mercedes, as is allowed in their contract.
I sense your current thinking is that Red Bull are the cause of many of the sports problems at the moment?
They’ve certainly overtaken Ferrari this year in the volumetric whine over the formula stakes.
Vous êtes tombé du lit Joe?
Frankly I’ve lost the thread with this whole tyre change thing, last I heard the FIA had slapped down Red Bull’s moaning by accepting Pirelli’s position that it isn’t a safety issue and therefore the rules mandate the same tyres all season. Which seemed like the best solution all round.
Guess you missed something then…
Great to hear. I think there was a real a chance that teams forgot who ran the sport. But I think it will be easy to predict what Redbull will be talking about all weekend. Of course unless they win.
Well they just delayed the change in tires from Canada to Silverstone.
And as for RBR…they also complained after their 1-2 finish in Bahrain, but people seem to forget that. They complained all the time already from the first testdays, and still leading both championships. Now that is strange isn’t it?
Joe you are right. RB set off a huge PR campaign against Pirelli when Seb couldn’t make the podium in Spain. They panicked like kids.
But the moaners and shouters, and those happy to stick with what we had, all agreed that at least the tyres were the same for everyone.
Clearly if Merc conduct an extensive illegal test on the tyres [and who knows what else] collect all the data they like, then put it to good use to get themselves out of a hole they dug for themselves, well that just isn’t on.
Cheating is not the remedy for bad engineering.
Buemi arrived in Monaco on saturday morning with two new wings for Seb in his luggage, engineered at the last minute in M Keynes. The result was a podium. At least they didn’t go down the Brawn route: cheat with a straight face.
“Clearly if Merc conduct an extensive illegal test on the tyres [and who knows what else] collect all the data they like, then put it to good use to get themselves out of a hole they dug for themselves, well that just isn’t on.
Cheating is not the remedy for bad engineering.”
True. But that’s a big if. We do not have all the facts yet. Let’s reserve the name calling until then.
“Buemi arrived in Monaco on saturday morning with two new wings for Seb in his luggage, engineered at the last minute in M Keynes. The result was a podium.”
Did he really?! I wonder how often this happens.
Big suitcases.
I imagine so. Story comes from GPguide.com who got it from Auto Motor und Sport.
No. I’ve never read GP Guide in my life. And having looked at it will not be doing so in the future. You need to understand that I do not spend my life scouring the web looking for stories written by people with no obvious link to the subject they are writing about… I hear things and I check them out. Just because someone else might have the same story does not mean I copied it…
On any case, if that is what you like, read it…
Joe, you misunderstand. I was pointing out to Rich2 and others above where I got the story about Buemi …
I am sorry. It happens. I never know to which comments new comments refer…
No prob at all.
The most important thing is F-1 has a new tyre manufactureer in 2014. We can live with this “tires” and Pirelli until this season ends…
I don’t see your logic.
Me either. Brains are required at the moment; F1 engineers stressed to the max; unpredictable races. Seems pretty good to me.
I agree with you Joe, the only thing that is a worry is the dangers which these tyres bring, large lumps of rubber flying around and those delaminations have potential dangers to drivers and marshalls.
I just don’t see this. The delaminations, according to Pirelli, only happen as a result of debris – when previous tyres would have punctured and, therefore, no more frequently than punctures in previous years. When a tyre punctures in F1 two things often happen: 1. the whole tyre falls apart and the carcass damages the car (leaving bits of carbon fibre on the track) or runs off and potentially hits other people or cars; 2 the car has a serious chance of going off the circuit with similar possible consequences.
The delaminations are, overall, better than this and therefore safer – in my opinion!
A delamination certainly affected Hamilton’s car; they had to change the gearbox because of the damage and take an (unearned) penalty.
De lamination is not the right description.
“Tread-shedding” is a right description?….
Yes
Please see your ‘Pirelli States It’s Case’ post. Pirelli calls is delamination.
Yes, I am aware of that. That is new.
Couldn’t agree more
Excessive taurine will do that to a team….
The right call, no moving the goal posts at half time.
Surely this has to be for the best, It was never a good decision to change tyre compounds/construction on the whim of the teams that can’t get them to work on their chassis’s.
I don’t believe Pirelli is pressured into making these changes. I can’t see they would do something just because a few teams are complaining. These changes are also not to please those teams but more for the fact that Pirelli wasn’t happy with the tires coming apart in a few cases. These changes will not stop those teams from complaining as it will not result in the tires they would like to have in F1.
And although they won’t use them for the race in Canada, they will be used from Silverstone onwards.
I agree no changes should be made during the season. It is much fairer to leave everything as it was.
Nah Andre, if this weather keeps up, the only tyres getting an outing at Silverstone will be the full wets
😉
While I think the tyre strategy has left far too little room for actual racing, I agree that they should not be changing the game in mid-season… changing it now wouldn’t be fair to those who have best mastered it, while giving undeserved advantage to those who haven’t…
Is this more anti-Redbull rhetoric Joe. What on earth have they done to deserve all this apart from help to raise the profile of the sport to unprecedented levels & make it more popular than I can remember.
Groan. Think a little. It is good exercise!
As a Red Bull fan, I’m sorry but I agree Red Bull is whinging about the tyres. Hell, they’re morphing into Ferrari.
Yes but what is the exact reason they complain so much? Why complain already before the start of the season? Why complain after a 1-2 finish? Why complain when leading both championships? With Vettel having 34 more points after 6 races compared to last year. Seems like they aren’t doing to bad on these tires.
Because maybe they would not be there if Ferrari had made fewer mistakes…
Could be but that would not count for why they would already complain about it in the first tests and already at Brazil in free practice on Friday.
Nobody knew then which team would be strong on those tires.
Is it only because they feel that’s the only way to win the 2013 championship??? Even when they have Newey ??
What if they generally feel that these tires are wrong for F1? Should they just be quiet and not talk about it?
I mean there are more people (also working in F1 and old F1 drivers) that complain about the tires, but when Red Bull does it it’s because they are afraid of not winning. To me that’s strange.
Yeah, no one had heard of Michael Schumacher until Red Bull came along.
well said
Alternatively RB maintain their tyre wear advantage over Merc in race trim and qualifying pace over the others – points wise, it’s not served them too badly so far.
Hope it rains!
So does Button…
I understood that pirelli wanted to use the new spec in canada , but only if the teams agreed
and guess what …they didn’t ,quelle surprise , and will get some tyres to test in FP1 instead
Joe, I find it strange that there is no paper trail regarding the testing. Would it not be the usual practice in F1 to get permission, from the powers that be, in writing or are agreements just done over the phone?
Who says there is paper trail?
Email trail?
To me it seems the issue is that whilst forcing additional stops if the tyre compound choice comes in just under the duration to make sensible stops we get complaints of tyre management being more important than racing. Short of preparing a different compound for each circuit I don’t know what they can do.
Perhaps the solution is to go back to the old scheme where a team can use any of the 4 compounds in a given weekend, with limits on quantity, then if tyre wear is an is an issue they can always select a harder compound and push it harder?
The 4 compound each weekend is not such a bad idea…. obviously one of the reasons that only 2 compounds are taken to a race is for logistical reasons as it halves the number of tyres…. but what if each team was allowed a set allocation of each of the types of tyre for a season and they could select out of this allocation what tyres they wanted to take to a particular race 1-2 months in advance to enable the tyre manufacturer to make and ship them to the race.
This would mean that you would have say 240 tyres allocated for a season (based of 12 sets per race weekend and 20 races per season) broken down as is sensible for the expected tyres needed for the tracks (e.g 40SS, 60S, 100M and 40H)
Then the teams choose from this allocation the 12 sets that they take to each race, with unused sets being forfeited (and used in testing and demo days)
This could provide for more strategy options and differential for the races with teams that are harder on their tyres at the start of the season being able to allocate more hard tyres whilst these sort out the problems. It also enables people to take SS tyres to a completely inappropriate track to try and secure a much higher grid slot.
Obviously you would still need the 2 compound rule in place to stop the non-stoppers and the only failure mode of the tyres wearing out has to be an extremely severe performance drop off… which they do already.
All this might be a way of making the tyres a bit more durable whilst keeping the interesting strategy later in the season?
Heartedly agree Joe though I doubt it will stop RBR from doing it again.
ps – thanks for your excellent and frequent blogs!
I really think Pirelli have been buggered about and it would be great if the moaners shut up. Red Bull are a drinks company and only in F1 for publicity. When it has served their purpose, they’ll be off. Quite why the authorities seem to be running scared is beyond me. Oh, hang on. It’s Money!. Just remember people, it’s the same for everyone and the best will still win.
I don’t think Reb Bull is in F1 just for the publicity, but would it be a problem if they were? Furthermore could you tell me why anybody would be in the sport or in any sport if it didn’t serve their purposes?
In most other walks of life, the vocal whiners in the sport would be told to grow up and stop behaving like the rich, spoiled children that they seem to be. Sadly, the vast amounts of money which circulate in and around the sport seems to be stripping away the old fashioned notion of sportsmanship. The entire issue around tyres is very frustrating to observe and is tantamount to someone saying – for example – that rugby/football matches should be twenty minutes longer because that’s when their team comes into its own. Equal challenge = a level playing field; stop the ******* whining!
You should see it like this…. Take soccer…the FIFA makes Nike the sole supplier of footballs in soccer. Nike makes them nice and round, like a normal football. Barcelona play great soccer with it, as do many other teams. Then the next year Nike changes the ball and makes it more like a skippyball, so it makes for more exciting matches. Already before the start of the season Barcelona says “this is not what a football should be like”. Then the season starts and Barcelona still win many of its matches but keeps complaining that soccer should not be played with these kind of balls.In the meantime they are working hard to adept to the new ball, like all the other teams are, but they still don’t like the fact that modern soccer is played with skippyballs. Because some skippyballs deflate, Nike changes the material a little so they last longer, but it remains a skippyball. 😉
In the end Barcelona become the champions, and while lifting the throphy they say ‘We still believe that soccer should not be played with skippyballs’
“Sportsmanship”? This “sport” is fitting cheese tyres to the cars in a desperate and sad attempt to stop one particular driver from winning. “Sportsmanship” left the barn a week ago and was last seen galloping across the hills. You can’t rig a sport to try to get a desired outcome and then invoke “sportsmanship”.
And these farcical tyres are only the latest in a long string of rules changes aimed at tilting the playing field in a particular direction. The transformation of F1 into professional wrestling is almost complete.
I don’t understand why you are interested if that is what you believe. Why not watch cricket instead?
Which is harder to make sense of: cricket or an F1 race with lots of pit stops?
Both are easy.
Does anyone know how keen Michelin is to return? I seem to vaguely remember they left on the basis they did not want to be a single supplier, they wanted to beat someone in order to promote their rubber? Can all this tyre nonsense be not for Michelin to replace Pirelli but to return to the good old days of tyre wars? Surly Bernie would prefer double pay to single pay!
Well the whole idea of degrading tires would not work with two or more suppliers. Then the tires would last the whole race or as long as it would work within certain parameters, because each supplier would make the best tire possible in order to beat the other supplier(s). And as the FIA wants degrading tires there is no chance of more then one supplier.
I guess those who have shouted loudest about Pirelli in recent weeks will be more than happy with the news that the Italian tyre firm has decided not to use the latest spec tyres in Canada after finding out rivals where given the opportuity to test them in advance. It might have been better to have kept their mouths shut…as there is no way they’ll get 2012 tyres back even if these were much better for everybody. Still, keeping the drive-to-delta tyres as they have been this year is a much fairer, though boring, way of doing business, rather than being advised into making changes to please the currently winning team, most of the drivers and all those who like to see head to head battle for the first spot.
Why does everyone assume Pirelli reacted to RedBull? Maybe they are reacting to Public back lash and comments from the drivers.
I also don’t understand why Pirelli running around trying to change things when they have done what FIA have asked – produce a degrading tyre – they should only be changing stuff if the FIA ask or all the teams decide it’s a problem or Safety is an issue. There are lots of ideas of what they should have done – I don’tthink this was on anyones list butthe FIA or Bernies (as he does have some weird ideas of good and bad)
But what can be done about Sawards incessant whinging about Red Bull?
From what I’ve seen there has been a great deal of criticism of the Pirelli tyres from many quarters – from the fans, pundits, many of the drivers, and many of the teams. It’s the press which seems uniformly determined to paint opposition to the cheese wheels as some nefarious Red Bull plot to steal the championship.
Ah.. Now I understand…
SteveM, if you don’t like the “incessant whinging” why do you come here?!
In my opinion this is one of the most balanced and objective sources for in depth F1 news. Sometimes the real stories shed unflattering light on our favourites, but that doesn’t mean the story’s not true.
RBR have some technical reasons not to run the current tires, over and above anyone else’s complaints. As far as I understand it, they are angling for revisions which would give them a distinct advantage, and using the current of other complaints as a vehicle to try to get their way to what would be a disproportionate advantage. I say fair cop to them for trying, but because they have been so vocal and the tire issue is indeed controversial, their position is rightfully scrutinized equally vocally. All that’s going on, in my view, is the f1 crowd of all churches is getting the hump with the attempt to hijack a otherwise legitimate argument for specific advantage. RBR have been really not subtle at all, so for that reason I don’t have particular beef with them, but I don’t think their arguments should prevail, either. Dissenting opinion is not trolling, when it is reporting the majority position.
Am I on a limb here? Are Pirelli thinking, sod it this is not worth the bother? Their management must be at least considering pulling the plug on F1.