Pirelli bring tyre changes forward to Canada

2013 Spanish Grand Prix

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Pirelli will introduced revised tyres in time for the Canadian Grand Prix, the official F1 tyre supplier has announced.

The changes are being made to guard against a repeat of Sunday’s race in Spain, where most drivers had to make four pit stops, and to put a stop to the delaminations suffered by some drivers in recent races.

“From Canada changes to be made to bring back two to three stops,” Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery said on Twitter. “Some structural changes combining elements 2012 and 2013 products.”

Hembery explained the thinking behind the decision: "Our aim is to provide the teams with a new range which mixes the stability of the 2012 tyres and the performance of the current ones. As a company, we have always moved quickly to make improvements where we see them to be necessary.

“After evaluating data from the first few races this year, we’ve decided to introduce a further evolution as it became clear at the Spanish Grand Prix that the number of pit stops was too high. The Spanish Grand Prix was won with four pit stops, which has only happened once before in our history.

“These changes will also mean that the tyres are not worked quite as hard, reducing the number of pit stops.

“With limited testing time, it’s clear now that our original 2013 tyre range was probably too performance-orientated for the current regulations. However, having identified this issue, we’re determined to rapidly resolve it.

“It’s worth underlining that the current regulations for winter tests limit the opportunity to test the tyres under the same conditions as the race season because of the lower temperature and restricted time. The teams are of the same opinion as we are in wanting longer testing times and different locations for the next tests. We developed the 2013 tyres on the basis of careful simulations that were, however, not sufficient, taking into account the improved speed of cars (up to three seconds per lap).

“We’ve also taken this step to avoid the delaminations that were caused by track debris. It’s important to point out that these delaminations, which occur when the tread comes off, do not compromise the safety of the tyres as the core structure of the tyre is not affected in any way, helping drivers to complete the lap and to change the damaged tyres safely. These delaminations were due to damage from debris that overheated the tread.

“We’d like to thank all the teams for their continued and extremely valued support as we worked with them to identify the correct compromise between the pure speed that makes us the world leader in the ultra high performance sector and a global spectacle that is easy for Formula One fans to follow."

Pirelli previously announced it would not make changes until the following race at Silverstone. It had warned that making changes to its tyres could be seen as favouring Red Bull, who have lobbied for changes.

Pirelli has allocated the super soft and medium tyres for the Canadian Grand Prix.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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216 comments on “Pirelli bring tyre changes forward to Canada”

  1. I hope you’re responding to the structural issues of the tyres, not the degradation, Pirelli.

    1. As I have understood, these changes are made to avoid delamination of the tyres and overheating of the rear tyres. The compounds itself should not be changed in order to make no disadvantages to teams like Ferrari and Lotus, but the structure is changed to the 2012 spec.

      1. The quotes in the article suggests that they’re doing both.

        1. @jamesf1

          It’s both and I support it. 82 pit stops in a race? That’s crazy. When too much overtaking doesn’t mean racing, something is wrong.

          1. Gee, yeh, lets go back to all the cars 1 stopping like we used, where cars finished more or less in their grid position.

            I was happy with how the race panned out on Sunday. The structural failures, not so much, but the degradation is spot on. People need to read Will Buxton’s view on the race and tyre situation, he hit the nail firmly on the head

          2. Where exactly does it say that 4 stops is too much on the one of the harshest circuits for tires?
            I found it perfectly fine and I don’t see why someone would find it confusing, unless they are too lazy to get more involved, in which case, F1 isn’t really the sport for them.

          3. What race were you guys watching? It looked like a fairly decent and normal F1 race to me. The only reason you notice 82 stops is because somebody went looking for that statistic so everybody could complain. I’m also insulted by the implication coming from some outlets that we had no idea what was happening as if we were all too stupid to figure it out. Can people not make sense of the info on the live timing screen?

      2. ibra (@ibraff1)
        14th May 2013, 12:01

        I don’t know how it’s possible to “bring back 2 stops per race” without changing the compound ;)

    2. Its degradation: “From Canada changes to be made to bring back two to three stops,”

      And they just handed the WDC to RBR/Merc.

      1. Lucas Wilson (@full-throttle-f1)
        14th May 2013, 11:37

        More likely RBR than Merc. And more likely Vettel than Webber.

        I thing they should present Vettel with his 2013 WDC at Canada :-D

        1. Maybe he can bolt all four trophies on his car as tyres next year, see how far he gets.

        2. So Renault will be worse-off? It doesn’t make sense, does it?

          1. *Lotus Renault (sorry)

          2. Lotus/Renault already have the advantage and it needs equalising!
            What I think is most interesting and it doesn’t seem to have been picked up on. The Pirelli development car (3 years old Renault), was made in the same factory and by the same team as the car that is currently best at managing its tyres (Lotus). This can’t be just coincidence, the tyres clearly share a direct relationship with the design philosophy of the cars. This is not dissimilar to the way Ferrari were the team that worked with Bridgestone to develop their F1 tyres during their early 2000’s dominance, the Bridgestone tyres worked on other cars, but nothing like they did on the Ferrari.

        3. (@joshua-mesh) (@full-throttle-f1)
          Exactly my fears as well – the RB is clearly the fastest car, but as much as I hate the tyres, at least they’re helping level the playing field from a 4th year of Newey domination.

      2. And allowing the fastest car/driver combination to win the championship is somehow bad?

        I’m no homer but I watch Top Gear to see how far cars can go on one tank of fuel or a set of tyres, their drivers are much funnier and they tend to drive through interesting places.

        1. @alec-glen

          Tyres are, being the only contact patch they usually have with the road, (less those that race near Pastor), are a very significant part of the car.

          1. @mike

            They are indeed although there’s a natural allure to F1 in that it should be the fastest and most technically advanced form of racing. Comedy tyres meant that 55/66 of the pole sitter’s race laps were slower than the GP2 pole time yet people said Bernie was mad when he floated putting water sprinklers in, this isn’t much different.

          2. Comedy tyres meant that 55/66 of the pole sitter’s race laps were slower than the GP2 pole time

            @alec-glen You seem to be comparing apple with orange.. Comparing race pace with pole lap? If the Mercs couldn’t take advantage of their 1-2 on the grid, it points to an obvious flaw in their setting up their cars and not the tires. Mercedes had the same amount of winter testing to check the performance of their car relative to the tires. Yet they produce a car which is only good for one lap pace and not race pace.

          3. @alec-glen

            An analysis of lap times would tell you that Fuel also plays a significant factor. And that by the last stints of the race, the F1 cars were lapping faster. Noting that tyres still were an issue. Rosberg’s pole time of 1m 20.718s blows GP2 completely out of the water.

            Secondly, note that the lap times in the GP2 race were significantly slower than the comparable laps times in the F1 race.

            Lastly, F1 has long long ago dropped the idea that faster = better in terms of the actual racing. I really don’t think the lap times really matter. The “allure” is mainly created from reputation and advertising. Moreso the latter.

          4. @seahorse
            It’s an apple vs an orange for sure but there’s a reason they’re apples and oranges, there’s meant to be a big step between them.

            I don’t care much for Merc but I don’t think it makes for great racing having such pronounced and narrow operating temperature windows. The Merc’s problem was that it never got into that window to get any performance as it couldnt keep the heat down, the wear wasn’t really the issue as Rosberg posted his best times on worn 3 stop tyres.

            The effect of this is that instead of worrying about getting to the front and passing/defending drivers are overly occupied with keeping their tyres within that narrow window, hardly the pinnacle of motorsport when drivers have to ask their engineers if they’re allowed to race.

            @mike
            Fuel does play a factor and yes the F1 cars were faster than the GP2 cars but my point still stands, because of the comedy tyres the Merc was driving at a speed that as Rosberg said himself Tanya from German TV could’ve driven.

            I understand that we’re never going to be pushing the limit of speed again but that reputation wasn’t built on nurdling overly temperature sensitive tyres around tracks at 80%.

            How slow do you think we can go before people would switch off? I mean, the fastest lap this year was 4 seconds slower than in 09 when they were one stopping despite today’s higher top speeds. Even in GP2 they hit 1:30 in the race in 09 which is only 3 tenths off Bottas’ best lap at the weekend. :/

        2. The fastest car is the car that works best with the tyres. They have developed their cars to work best with the pre-canada tyres and some teams have done a better job than the others. By changing the tyres, Perreli are moving the goal posts away from those who had done a better job so far, and closer to those who have done a poorer job.

          1. Erm..NO. Even the car that won was NOT the fastest car, not was it driven as fast it actually is. There is something wrong with that.

          2. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

          3. @joshua-mesh
            If that’s the case then why stop at comedy tyres? Let’s take the cars on a proper world championship including comedy tracks like Lake Baikal in Siberia and the Sahara Desert. Bernie clearly doesn’t care for the number of fans trackside and I’m sure Tilke’d love the available runoff.

            We’d have unpredictable racing and the winner would be who could get the tyres to work best in those conditions. Aero, engine power etc can still go out of the window and we’d probably get less pitstops and finishers like in the golden 80s.

          4. This point about renault and ferrari having developed their car to be easy on tyres keeps being brought up, but why is it correct?

            It seems plausible to me that just as much as merc and redbull dont understand why they’re so hard on tyres ferrari and lotus may not actually understand why they’re so good on them.

            Cars have lots of traits, for example, Force India (previously jordan etc) have always been great at Spa. Toyota were always horrible in monaco but williams better than usual there. These are traits that have be around for 15-20 years and are fundamental to the base of the car. It’s possible that that is the case for tyre performance too. Did renault ever have trouble warming the tyres up in the past? I can’t remember.

          5. That is correct, the fastest car is the one that can finish the length of the race first/fastest. But do we want the tires to be main factor of the car’s speed?

          6. Except… you cant talk about fastest car, the cars that are winning now are not fast, they are simply the least slow, its a joke.

      3. @joshua-mesh Not so fast. if Pirelli make the tires more durable. Ferrari and Lotus can run 1 or (X) stoppers given that their cars are “very kind” on Tires. Kimi will do a great job with that and so will Alonso. And the likes of Merc and RBR will need X+1 stops in most cases. But the difference will be all the teams can push on these tires. Some with less stops and some with more stops. We will have races with some real strategy and thrill. Rather than everybody doing a 4 Stopper and slowing down to get to the Chequered flag.

        It will even help Button and Perez who like Kimi are good at long consistent runs. Pirelli is over-exaggerating to scare fans that Red Bull will will by deflecting their problem on someone else.

        I think with the change we will see the year as

        Long Consistent Drives ( Webber , Kimi, Alonso, Button, Perez, Rosberg)
        Vs
        Short Faster Drives ( Lewis & Vettel )

        ( A Safety car could even tilt things in favor of Long Consistent drivers !!!)

        In Spain it was like Cheese Cake Factory. There was more rubber on the Track than there was on the cars.

        1. I’m not sure if you remember a few years back (I think it was 2010) when Ferrari where useless when they put the hard tyres on because the car was not designed to put enough energy into the tyres to heat them up so they sat inside the window they needed to operate. We could see the same thing happen, but to Lotus instead.

          Imagine the out-cry if in 2010, the FIA ordered Perelli to make the tyres softer, removing Ferrari’s disadvantage in the process?

        2. if Pirelli make the tires more durable. Ferrari and Lotus can run 1 or (X) stoppers given that their cars are “very kind” on Tires. Kimi will do a great job with that and so will Alonso. And the likes of Merc and RBR will need X+1 stops in most cases.

          That is so far from the truth. Working F1 tires is much more complex that that. It’s all about temperature. You don’t just run them longer if you run them few centigrades lower. You need to run them in their optimum temperature and this will change that completely.

          1. no it wont. you’re wrong. the problem that ALL teams have been having to some extent is that due to their levels of downforce (higher than predicted) this year the cars are putting so much energy via friction into the tyres that the only way to keep them in their operating window is to drive the car slower than is possible. All teams are doing this to some extent, lotus and ferrari just the least. By reverting to 2012 spec tyres with their lower and wider operating windows most of the cars should be able to run the tyres for their designated lifespan at close to the cars possible pace.

          2. @avl0, I thought Pirelli said that it’s actually the 2013 tyres to have a wider operating window, not the 2012 ones.

      4. So be it if it means a return to racing.

    3. I don’t want Vettel to win yet another consecutive 4th title as well.

      But we can’t screw up F1 in an effort to prevent that.

      1. My thoughts exactly

      2. +1 well said.

      3. How has F1 been screwed up? Kimi and Ferrari proved that you can go flat out with the current crop of tyres. Lotus and Ferrari (and to a lesser extent Force India and Toro Rosso) designed their cars and its behaviours around the tyres, which everyone was given a taster of in Brazil and pre-season testing. The foolish teams who didn’t compromise on their car’s downforce and or set up didn’t, and are subsequently whinging.

        On reflection, the picture taken in Bahrain with Toto Wolff, Christian Horner, Bernie Eccelstone and Paul Hembry is very telling. Get all the teams together and get them to vote on the issue.

        1. OmarR-Pepper (@)
          14th May 2013, 18:34

          Kimi and Ferrari proved that you can go flat out with the current crop of tyres

          Did you watch the race @jamesf1 ? They weren’t going flat out. they manage the tyres better, but when the performance went down, the 3 of them were just resisting to the others (Alonso built up distance but was not going “flat out”, and Kimi and Massa especially were doing super slow lap times when the tyres were worn out )

          1. Yes I did. I didn’t say they were going flat out for the entire race, but for a good portion of it they were, if you review the lap data. Alonso’s lap times in the first and third stint were immense, fairly good during the second and forth, and consistent in last (where he was probably conserving fuel and managing the gap). Kimi’s third and forth stint were quick too. Why? Because their cars are designed to care for the tyres but use them when needed, and also, the drivers in the cars are smart. They can feel the tyres, know when to push and when to conserve rather than being told to do so.

          2. @omarr-pepper
            Alonso’s total race time was only 7 seconds slower than Maldonado’s in 2012, that’s only a difference of 0.1 seconds per lap. Whoo, big difference.

            The 2013 tyres are no slower nor don’t they wear quicker than the 2012 tyres.

          3. Did you watch the race @omarr-pepper
            After the first pit stop when Alonso undercut Vettel in lap 13 he was 1.5s faster than Nico Roseberg who was overtaken and 0.370 faster than Vettel on a used set of Hard compound while Vettel was using a new set of Hard compound then he raised his advantage to 4s when Vettel overtook Roseberg
            Alonso pitted again in lap 21 & he was in 4th place, Vettel in lap 24 and Kimi in lap 26 at this stage Alonso was flat out and benefited from Red Bull’s strategic error : he was 0.6s faster than Vettel
            3rd pit stop in lap 36 Alonso was 1.799s behind Kimi, it took him 3 laps to overtake him , by lap 40 the gap was 4s, lap 41 the gap was 6s,lap 44 the gap was 9.7s
            Alonso in the race was 0.3s slower than Kimi on medium compound and 0.8s faster on hard compound and this for me where the race was won
            If you have any doubt about these numbers go back and check them
            And now to the story of “Drivers cannot push 100% all the race”, i don’t know if this is your understanding to this story or that you are trying to hide the truth but anyway i’m going to answer you
            In the post refueling era you can’t actually push 100% all the race for simple reasons :
            The fuel is always on the limit so there is a time when you push and moments when you have to save fuel and we saw it many times how drivers turned down their engines
            Reliability purposes engine ,gearbox…….
            I don’t know why Vettel’s fans are complaining about these tyres that doesn’t allow push 100% all the race, please give one win when Vettel was pushing at least 40% of the race , no you can’t because he always start from the front pushes around 20% builds a gap and then control the race which is boring but effective
            So please find another excuse and we will discussed together !!!!!!!!!

          4. @tifoso1989

            I don’t know why Vettel’s fans are complaining about these tyres that doesn’t allow push 100% all the race, please give one win when Vettel was pushing at least 40% of the race , no you can’t because he always start from the front pushes around 20% builds a gap and then control the race which is boring but effective

            I don’t know why this is being directed at just Vettel fans, as there are plenty of non-Red Bull fans still expressing concern but I will answer your criticism anyway.

            Vettel didn’t have it forced upon him that he couldn’t push: he deliberately uses that tactic because as you said it is very effective. However, now drivers who are in the thick of the action are expected to conserve their tyres by driving at 80% whilst fighting on track: that by default makes the battles themselves rather poor. What we really need is tyres which aren’t indestructible but still allow drivers to be on the limit; i.e. a happy medium between the current Pirelli’s and the old Bridgestones, which is why I think we should have just kept the 2012 tyres.

            There’d still be one or two stops, but since the teams all know the compounds and they are harder that the current ones then we would see proper battles with the fastest cars winning. Isn’t that what F1 is all about?

          5. @vettel1

            Vettel didn’t have it forced upon him that he couldn’t push: he deliberately uses that tactic because as you said it is very effective. However, now drivers who are in the thick of the action are expected to conserve their tyres by driving at 80% whilst fighting on track: that by default makes the battles themselves rather poor. What we really need is tyres which aren’t indestructible but still allow drivers to be on the limit; i.e. a happy medium between the current Pirelli’s and the old Bridgestones, which is why I think we should have just kept the 2012 tyres.

            Why are you claiming that racing on the 2012 tyres was much better than the 2013 tyres? The pace you could do on both was about the same.

            Alonso’s total race time was only 7 seconds slower than Maldonado’s race time last year, that’s an average of 0.1 seconds per lap.

            Red Bull owner, Dietrich Mateschitz is the latest to wade into the Pirelli discussion after watching Sebastian Vettel struggle to a fourth place finish in Spain. According to Autosport, the Red Bull boss was locked in a 45 minute private discussion with Bernie Ecclestone and then followed this up with scathing comments about Pirelli’s tyres.

            “This has nothing to do with racing anymore,” complained Mateschitz. “This is a competition in tyre management…. Under the given circumstances, we can neither get the best out of our car nor our drivers.”

            Helmut Marko even played the safety card: “I wonder when tyre failures will result in severe accidents.”

            However, let’s get this right. Red Bull is NOT being hindered by high degrading tyres. What it is being hindered by is by THEIR CAR degrading its own tyres. There is a distinct difference.

            Indeed, there is little truth to the teams “having to tiptoe” around the track. Fernando Alonso’s winning race time was only 7 seconds off last year’s winning time. Sebastian Vettel’s race time was 20 seconds QUICKER that in 2012! He was quicker in China too. The way Red Bull have been telling it, you would have thought we’d been running foul of the two-hour race limit. Funnily enough, the race that was slower was Bahrain – Vettel’s winning time was around one minute slower than the time he won the race in in 2012, or some one second a lap, and yet Red Bull were not complaining after Bahrain. I wonder why?

            Go back further to 2011 and Vettel was the victor in that year’s Spanish Grand Prix. The winning strategy? A four-stopper. Yet where were the Red Bull complaints about having to make so many pit stops that time around?

            Anyway, if all these teams are really so intent to drive flat-out, how come we keep seeing them fuel saving because they have not put enough juice in to get to end of the race at full throttle? Just a few races ago Red Bull were demanding that Vettel hold station behind a fuel-saving Mark Webber – talk about not being able to drive to their full potential!

            Lotus are using the exact same tyres but they’re not complaining. Nor are Ferrari. Mercedes, who you might think would have more to complain about, are busy putting their heads down and trying to work out what they’re doing differently from the others.

            Red Bull, however, are intent on changing the sport to suit them, rather than adapting to the sport. All they’re achieving is sounding like bad losers.

            And Formula One cannot give in to their demands without losing all credibility, so give it rest will you boys.

            http://www.vivaf1.com/blog/?p=12934

          6. I wonder how how committed the ‘Drinks Company’ actually is to F1. As soon as they don’t win every single race and start on pole position they start crying for changes.

            They even had the opportunity to test the tyres in Brazil and again during the pre-season. If Newey really is that good he would have come up with a solution by now, you would think…

            Thankfully this team is nothing but a marketing tool and will leave F1 as soon as they stop winning. The sooner the better. With this type of egotistical behavior, I can’t see RBR lasting more than 10 years in the sport. They think F1 evolves around them.

          7. @kingshark

            Anyway, if all these teams are really so intent to drive flat-out, how come we keep seeing them fuel saving because they have not put enough juice in to get to end of the race at full throttle? Just a few races ago Red Bull were demanding that Vettel hold station behind a fuel-saving Mark Webber – talk about not being able to drive to their full potential!

            Again, that is a conscious decision on the team’s part: they deliberately under-fuel the cars in the hope of a safety car period or such like. That’s always happened – in fact, it was the most prevalent in the 60’s with Lotus. Keith did an article on the very subject recently, so that’s a bit of a non-argument. Saving gearboxes etc is also a conscious decision, which is usually used when the driver has no real threat from behind (i.e. Vettel when leading races from the front).

            Why are you claiming that racing on the 2012 tyres was much better than the 2013 tyres? The pace you could do on both was about the same.

            No it isn’t: these cars have been developed for a whole year essentially since then, so should be significantly faster (in the region of a second per lap).

            This years pole time was a full second faster than the fastest time set in Q3 last year (Hamilton’s, in an underfueled McLaren: 1:20.7 vs 1:21.7). So if we then assume had it not been for the tyres they’d carry over a similar advantage in the race, the times could theoretically be a minute faster. So the fact they were 7 seconds slower shows that actually these are forcing drivers to tip-toe more than last year. To me that sounds like negative progress.

            Red Bull, however, are intent on changing the sport to suit them, rather than adapting to the sport. All they’re achieving is sounding like bad losers.

            You could bet your last dollar Red Bull are working furiously at the problem – they aren’t triple world champions for no reason. And that “sore losers” claim holds little value if you look at the world championship standings.

            As for the argument of “Lotus and Ferrari aren’t having any problems”, that’s because pretty much they happened to have a car which naturally suited these tyres. A set of development compounds and some rough data isn’t exactly much to go by in designing a car around the tyres over the winter, so I don’t really accept that argument either. If you actually wanted to see a good engineering challenge, you would’ve kept the 2012 compounds as then the common denominator between teams would have little to no influence and the team who could develop their car the best would win. That’s the whole point isn’t it?

            Honestly, I think especially in Lotus’ case these tyres are just masking the inherent lack of downforce the car has and to a lesser extent the Ferrari. The teams with superior downforce – which would usually help them with tyre conservation – Red Bull & Mercedes are being hurt for it.

          8. @Vettel

            then we would see proper battles with the fastest cars winning. Isn’t that what F1 is all about?

            And that’s what we are seeing with the 2013 tyres, did you saw a Marussia or a Caterham fighting Red Bull for pole or a Sauber getting a podium ……
            In the first 5 races Red Bull has 2 pole positions (not bad for the world champions) and Mercedes 3 poles (who also got 2 poles last year one in China and another virtual one last year in Monaco) with their car that is developed around the FRIC system
            We saw Kimi Vettel and Alonso winning all the races, the lotus last year was arguably the car with the best race pace in the first part of 2012 , Ferrari also is a great car in race conditions and Red Bull is maybe the best package available, I don’t know where you’re seeing the change, the best drivers in the fastest cars are the ones who took poles & won races ,last year we had 7 different winners in the first 7 races ,at least in this year the situation is even more stable than 2012 , and these are facts
            I have noticed that every excuse about 2013 tyres coming from the Red Bull camp is being easily contradicted by facts

          9. @tifoso1989 no, but what I did see was the supposedly deeply flawed Sauber seeing the fastest lap of the race, and in the early stages a Red Bull failing to overtake a supposedly much slower Marussia for nearly a whole lap (bearing in mind, there were blue flags being waved).

            I’m not suggesting that the changes are so severe that Marussia’s are winning races, but lets be honest: that Lotus lacks downforce compared to the front runners as is evident from qualifying and has only won a race due to the fact it can consequently nurse the tyres better. There’s little point citing the start of 2012 either, because I’m using the end of 2012 for the basis of my argument where (apart from that exceptional Abu Dhabi race) the Red Bull and the McLaren won 8 of the last 9 races. Where’s the contradiction there may I ask?

        2. @jamesf1

          on the BBC broadcast, DC was critiquing Massa when the were following him in the car (somewhere in the lap 50s), saying how slowly he was going, short-shifting and lifting through turns. He was about to go on about how much slower Massa was than the two cars ahead of him when he looked at the lap times of Kimi and Alonso, and Massa was going FASTER than them.

          Kimi and Fernando were not running flat out. The were just driving less slow than most everyone else. If Massa didn’t have issues with his tires during his second stint, he probably would have passed Kimi.

          1. I have been watching f1 since 1998 and haven’t seen one year where the drivers are ibstructed to not fight the passing car. Enough argument for the tyre situation

    4. I truly think that the compound should stay the same and they fix this whole delamination issue. 3-4 stops is great.

      1. (@kingshark)

        Go back further to 2011 and Vettel was the victor in that year’s Spanish Grand Prix. The winning strategy? A four-stopper. Yet where were the Red Bull complaints about having to make so many pit stops that time around?

        This, so much.

        Thankfully this team is nothing but a marketing tool and will leave F1 as soon as they stop winning. The sooner the better. With this type of egotistical behavior, I can’t see RBR lasting more than 10 years in the sport. They think F1 evolves around them.

        Surely these changes are proving them right though? I’ve been reading these articles/comments constantly for the last few days, and I’ve increasingly been feeling torn between the currently useless tyres, and the the silly quantity of pitstops. As far as I can tell, a few distinct problems have arisen due to Pirelli messing it up at the start of the year with tyres that have such a ludicrously high degree of degredation;

        – to change the compounds now is a knee-jerk ‘moving the goalposts’ mid-season, which is unfair on the less resourced teams that have built their cars specifically to cater for terrible tyres (i.e Lotus).
        – changing the tyres now would also effectively hand the championship back to Red Bull, as they blatantly have another Newey monster (watch the onboard in comparison to the others, it looks like it’s stuck to the road with glue), a consequence I don’t even think RB/Vettel fans would be too keen on, as we’re approaching early 2000’s degrees of predictability and dullness.
        – is it even fair to keep these tyres just because many fans are sick of seeing the finger? I’m no RB/Vettel fan, but surely if they have Adrian Newey and they constantly have the fastest car, they should be winning? Or is F1 more than that? I think this has plagued the sport for years, and I genuinely don’t really have an answer, although I do feel one driver winning consistently (like 2010-2012 or 2000-2004) is bad for the sport, as there’s no real sport in watching someone in a car so superior there’s no real challenge in it. I wouldn’t watch running if all but two runners had their laces tied together.

        but on the other hand;
        – 4 stops is getting ridiculous.
        – the drivers can’t push, at all, anywhere, during a race. At what is supposedly the pinaccle of motorsport.
        – delaminations are going to get someone hurt (which hopefully have been remedied now)
        – I am sick to death of hearing about tyres, as I’m sure we all are.

        I personally would suggest just throwing caution to the win, using the 2012 tyres again. Maybe I don’t understand enough about tyre compounds and the like, but what have they got to lose just trying out the ’12 spec ones on a friday practice with ALL the teams and seeing how they fare?

  2. combination of 2012 and 2013???

    sounds like a good excuses to cover the fact that they gonna bring back the 2012 spec tyres.

    Shame for a small team like Lotus with limited funding that actually include tyre as PART OF THE EQUATION FOR PERFORMANCE…i hope it doesnt affect them too much.

    1. Lotus was pretty good at managing tyres in 2012 and there’s no reason to believe this change will hurt them.

      1. Well we can presume that of the four top teams, the temperature generated from high to lowest: Merc -> RBR -> Ferrari -> Lotus.

        So if they now make the tyres reach lower temperatures in order to preserve the tyres, they will be rewarding cars that generate more heat and penalising teams who’s cars do not generate high temperatures.

      2. @jcost (@joshua-mesh) The knock-on effect to what Joshua is describing is the strategy options that Lotus has given itself that no other team seems to have. Lotus designed their car in such a way that they can push and be on the same pit strategy or go slightly slower and be on one less pit stop.

        Changing the tires so that all of the cars can do one less pit stop takes away the advantage that Lotus baked into their car. Just because no one else did, Pirelli is being forced (by a particular team whining and the press making a fuss) to capitulate to RBR. Look at Ferrari. They work with the tires, do the same number of pit stops and slam around on high speed sprints to make it work.

        Unless they are extremely subtle changes, this could effectively end the season. Hope not.

        1. @hobo if the tires are more durable and if Lotus and Ferrari are very soft on Tires, they will do one Lesser stop. We will see races with just one stop strategy too.

          But the difference will be all the teams can run the cars to the full potential rather than running it half power.

          1. @tmax – What you describe would be the best case scenario given that the tire change has been decided. If all of the teams benefit fairly equally, so be it. But I would counter with, when have you ever seen a rule change in F1 benefit everyone? I think the teams that are harder on their tires will benefit much more.

            I prefer the occasional 4 stop to the 1 stop, but that’s me.

            Your second point is wishful thinking, in my estimation. As I noted elsewhere, cars run at far less than their full potential at all times across all seasons (not just the current one). Qualifying is generally full out–high revs, low fuel, new tires. Everything else is a compromise not matter what the tires are like. Save fuel, save the engine, save the tires, stay out of bad air, etc.

            Likely RBR will be able to exploit revised tires and maybe Merc, but it could just as easily ruin Ferrari’s and Lotus’ ability to run fast and long. We’ll see. Hope for the best.

          2. Well said, hobo.

      3. @JCost agree with you.

        The entire field slowed down and Pirelli saw that things were not going quite right as planned. I am sure Ferrari and Lotus will not have any issues. Lotus was managing their tires very well last year. So what is the problem if they go back to last year tires. They will still do a good job. Same with Ferrari. They had managed Tires very well last year. Their 2012 car had other issues which was sorted out. I dont think this will slow down Ferrari and Lotus. For all you know it might even make our Good ol McLaren faster :)

        1. @tmax

          After the race in Spain, pretty much everyone had negative assessments on tyres, including Alonso. I dont get this Red Bull conspiracy.

    2. They can’t bring back 2012’s tyres because the external shape and construction are different.

      They’re just making changes to stop them exploding.

      1. Exactly, I’m thinking that the issues are inter- related, hot rears are de laminating, and it’s not just on one team. Something has to be done, it’s a safety issue.
        iMO it has nothing to do with favouritism.

  3. Wow. Six comments (at the time of typing this) already proving that no matter what they do, Pirelli will cop a bagging.

    1. Because Pirelli are deliberately obsfucating excatly what they intend to do. For a team who relish being in the limelight (Hembery with all his PR soundbites), they could have been more clear….like –
      “No, these are not the 2011 tyres”, and “No, these are not the 2012 tyres either”, and be more specific about what they are changing in the 2013 tyre. Pirelli get blamed all the time, because they do not help themselves.
      If Hembery did not start shooting off his mouth regarding holding back RBR and subsequently helping Ferrari and Lotus, all this talk about favouritsm would not have gained so much traction.

    2. But Pirelli is also doing this smart trying to make Red Bull Look like the Villian :)

      1. True…. and Make Mateschitz into the next Montezmolo

      2. Will it be just a coincidence that Mateschitz and Ecclestone slam Pirelli for the tires on the same day? Not to mention DM had a meeting with BE

  4. If these changes lead to Red Bull returning to their 2011 performance levels, I shall boycot the rest of the season.

    1. The main problem with this is that we’re seeing another way of domination.

      In 2011, one certain team benefited from development of the blown diffuser. These days, there are two teams that can go longer and faster than the others because the car responds better with the rubber available.

      I don’t see why other teams should complain. Tyres have always been THE most important bit of the equation. If the tyres don’t work, the car won’t work. That’s so obvious and it’s always been the case, the rubber is the only thing that connects car with track.

      Vettel won the spanish GP in 2011 stopping 4 times. Now, they are complaining? Why? They say they are racing at half the speed the car is capable of. Well, try better ! Ferrari and Lotus are going faster… that means there’s room for improvement, just like the others had a lot of work to do in 2011.

      I do admit that the situation is getting ridiculous because the racing has been meaningless. People don’t want to race on track because the tyres are gone after they do, so instead they let others by. The races have been ridiculously bad.

      But it’s just annoying the way Red Bull are complaining.

      1. @fer-no65

        I am starting to appriciate just how difficult a situation Pirelli are in. I am against the current tyres and their over emphasis on conservative driving; however I am equally against making serious changes early mid season (or at all during the season). It has the ability to take the title out of the reach of teams and drivers who did a better job during the winter. It will be hugely unfair and unjust if the changes affect Ferrari or Lotus performance in a significant way. I think it would make a farce of the whole season.

        1. @nick-uk indeed. Imagine how the design department in Lotus and Ferrari might feel if they change the tyres for a harder and more durable compound that’s just as fast?

          THey worked their bottoms the whole winter to find a better way for the car to work under extreme conditions, and now they change it because 80% of the teams don’t like it?

          Seems ridiculously unfair. Specially if this isn’t like the double diffuser, when 3 teams found a loophole and the others didn’t. This was all within the rules, all with materials that are given to teams, not developed by them.

    2. @nick-uk @fer-no65 I think thats very on sided. There was a reason why nobody complained back in 2011, it was because there was racing back then. Now we have to be happy with Kimi letting Alonso pass, and Vettel letting Kimi pass because they are saving tyres?

      If I want to see a sunday drive I will go drive myself and not get up at 6am in the morning just to see everybody saving tyres.

      1. @celeste

        Don’t get me wrong I don’t want to see Sunday drives either. It’s not 100% because I don’t want to see Red Bull at the front again. I am massively against a fundamental change mid season that could significantly affect the pecking order. It would be like changing the rules in a poker game to mean that the guy with the least chips was now winning. Once the bed is made you need to sleep in it. Look at how the race at Silverstone in 2011 changed things! After one race they reverted the changes to the old engine maps and Red Bull were back in front. I just don’t see how it is fair to make changes now. What we have is what we’ve got. It’s time to sit back and accept that.

      2. @celeste I also think 2011 had more “real” races. It just, as @nick-uk says, mid-season changes so drastic like this one are very veeeeeeeeeeery wrong.

        How’s it Lotus or Ferrari fault that the others cannot do a good job like they do? that’s what I meant comparing this season with 2011.

        1. @fer-no65 and @nick-uk and how is the others team fault that Pirelli had screw up. Under normal circunstances a change last this wouldn´t be allowed, but even the safety of the drivers it´s at risk. The way that tyres are disintegrating and did for Di Resta, Hamilton, Vergne and Massa is scary.

          1. @celeste Ha! Saftey you say. Not to belittle the topic, but when drivers can do backflips and hit walls at the speeds of Webber/Kubica in Canada and walk away… they’re safe enough.

          2. @celeste that’s different. They are not just fixing the delamination problems, they’ll change the way the tyres degrade.

            If there’s drivers at risk, ofc a change is needed. Pirelli didn’t do that on purpose, unlike the fast degradation which is deliberate…

  5. So we’re keeping the quick-to-degrade compounds but going back to the rounder structure of last year which had a knife-edge operating temperature window? So on top of the degradation teams are going to have to deal with getting any actual performance out of them too?

    It could mix up the field a bit like last year again, maybe the Williams can get another win!

    1. Lucas Wilson (@full-throttle-f1)
      14th May 2013, 11:50

      @alec-glen

      No, Maldonado’s ’cause a crash’ cravings will be too strong to last a whole race.

      1. @lucas-wilson

        Maybe Bottas can come out of hiding!

  6. Changing the tyre compounds mid-season really goes against my instincts – at least the races will be ‘better’ than the Spanish GP, though I’m not sure that outweighs the unfairness the former point brings. Anyway, it’s good to see them responding quickly to the dangerous delamination problem.

    Shame on Red Bull for lobbying an independent party.

    1. @andae23

      Red Bull was more vocal, but they were not alone. Drivers in particular did not like those tyres, apart from Kimi, I don’t recall many positive remarks on tyres made by drivers.

  7. I have never criticised Pirelli for simply doing what they were asked to do. I don’t understand why people are never happy about anything. We had races that were very tactical and quite exciting because people did different strategies and degraded the tyres at different rates. But no, now people complain that the drivers can’t go flat-out all the time (which they actually never did, but oh well) when it was them that wished for a less durable compound so that races would have been spicy and just simple processions like when Schumi was at Ferrari.
    I don’t understand people. I really don’t.
    Now Pirelli are going to make more durable tyres and guess what – Lotus and Ferrari, who have shown that the tyres can be managed, will be at a disadvantage.

    Besides, I don’t think changes should be made midway through the season – unless it is a for a security reason – as some teams (particularly) have worked really hard to make their car be very gentle on the tyres, and now most of that work is going to be thrown out of the window!

    I don’t like this, I don’t like it at all.

    1. jimscreechy (@)
      14th May 2013, 12:59

      I think your right that perhaps Pirelli are coming under a little to much criticism, for doing what they were asked, but even they have admitted they have gone to far, I’m more suprised you don’t see this rather large discrepancy.

      The simple fact is that we are getting very little racing. Mostly we are getting an extensive tyre conservation war. Drivers are regularly being told, don’t race him/protect your tyres/your on a different strategy/slow down/aim for delta-X till the next pit stop. It is all tyres! Strategy used to come into play with fueling but the cars still had to race each other for position, something which doesn’t happen now. Now they race each other for tyre longevity and it is very very clear the fastest car doesn’t win but he best on its tyres for that particular track.

      Also, there is a big difference in drivers not going flat out all the time because they don’t have to, as opposed to ‘never being able to drive flat-out’ without lasting more than 6 laps. Privously drivers could drive flat when neeeded, and this was nearly always the case during the early quarters of the race, but yes,they would often ease back and coast the car home if far enough ahead, or they weren’t being challenged. They could (and certainly did) turn up the wick and go flat out if they were being caught, lost position through some misfortune, or had a rival encounter a sudden turn of speed. They could do it because they didn’t have to worry too much about he plastacine tyres falling apart or lap times rising by 10 seconds after a sudden burst of speed. – Jimscreechy sworn enemy to the current tyre situation.

      1. They have gone too far because the cars have changed, so it’s not really their fault.
        Besides, I seem to remember that the 2012 season started off in a very similar fashion; by the half season mark, however, teams have started to understand how the tyres worked and how to maximise their potential, leading to a dramatic decrease of the number of pit stops during each race.

        So why are people not being patient about it now? Because it’s harder this time round? Well, tough luck. Try harder.
        Racing is not all about going fastest, especially during a race. That’s for qualifying is for. The winner of the race is the one that can control all the variables, including tyre wear. If the fastest driver in the world doesn’t know how to treat his tyres kindly, then I’m sorry but he does not necessarily deserve to be World Champion.

        Pirelli were supposed to bring tyres to create 2-3 pit stop races. Well, Raikkonen pitted twice in Australia and 3 times in Spain. I guess Lotus can do it. And if they can do it, there is no reason why Red Bull or Mercedes or Ferrari or any other time can’t get on top of the tyres.

        You’ll see, now they’ll tweak the tyres to have 2-3 stops, and in about 7-8 races’ time the engineers would have understood how to treat the tyres more kindly, and Pirelli will be criticised again for being too conservative!

        1. Also, Fernando Alonso proved that you can pit 4 times and still win the damn race, while Lotus lacks the speed but has the pace to get on the podium. It’s true, to be a real master in F1 racing you have to be able to control all the variables, not just to be the fastest flat-out driver.

        2. jimscreechy (@)
          14th May 2013, 15:40

          Some of the comments you have made are borderline rediculous. If your seriously saying that tyre wear is down to driver handling you really don’t understand the situation at all. Its a fairly well established fact that the tyre wear is almost entirely dependant on the car’s characteristics and nothing to do with driving style. drivers adpating their technique has almost no effect on tyre wear. Additionally F1 has been most emphatically and almost entirely ABOUT going fast thoughtout its history. Qualifying is ONLY about establishing grid position.

          1. @jimscreechy – To your points.. if tire wear is down to car construction then it is the constructors who are to blame. All teams had the same info, only Lotus and maybe Ferrari seem to be able to make their designs work. That is not a tire problem.

            Yes, racing and F1 are about going fast but two things..
            1. Clearly the cars are not racing flat out all the time. Qualifying laps are always faster that race laps which means that they aren’t going as fast as they can at all times.
            2. If half of racing is about driving fast, the other half is finishing. Drivers routinely drive slower to save fuel, save the engine, cool the engine, and save the tires. Why all of a sudden the last bit is the end of the world is beyond me. There has always been this push, save tires but go fast. MSC did it in France years ago (4 stops, and won). ALO did it this race and beat a 3-stopper.

            Racing is hard, let the teams figure it out on track.

          2. Oops, that wasn’t supposed to happen.

            Is there a way I can edit my own comments?

          3. jimscreechy (@)
            14th May 2013, 16:31

            yes your absolutely right.

          4. Its a fairly well established fact that the tyre wear is almost entirely dependant on the car’s characteristics and nothing to do with driving style. drivers adpating their technique has almost no effect on tyre wear.

            @jimscreechy That was funny. Maybe you should check with Button what you just said. “Tyre Wear has nothing to do with Driving Style ” LOL

      2. @dragon88 & @jimscreechy Pirelli has said that they aimed 2-3 stops per race, not 4. They’ve aknowledged that they went further than what has been demanded by FIA. Like they say, if you want a sport where strategy is 99% of the result go watch chess.

        I want meaningful overtakes, not all that “you can pass, I’m on a different strategy”.

        2011 and 2012 we had high deg tryes but we had great racing, but 2013 tyres are so bad that we cannot enjoy racing for more than 15 laps!

        1. The ones who enjoyed 2011 are obviously RedBull fans. Generally we had a boring 2011 season simply because you know by just a couple of races, RedBull would win the championship. The tyres in that season are so durable sometimes teams can only do 1 stop per race. It doesn’t create too much strategy in the race.
          The tyre is one of the factors, NOT the only factor you can win races. To be a good driver, you must not drive like rocketship all the time but you also need to know when to push, to conserve, etc. The car is also a factor and the engineers as well. A lot of factor are taken into consideration before a win is possible.
          Lotus and Ferrari did a great job by building a car that’s good with pre-Canada 2013 specs. By changing the tyre compounds by Canada 2013 onwards you are taking away their hardwork in building a car that’s gentle on its tyres. It’s the fault of the other teams that their cars are eating the tyres like candies.
          Formula 1 is ever changing rapidly where brilliant minds meet. If the team can’t cope up with the change, then they’ll be left behind.

          1. The ones who enjoyed 2011 are obviously RedBull fans.

            I enjoyed 2011 more than 2012/2013 so far & I am certainly not a Red Bull or Vettel fan!

        2. I seem to recall Raikkonen winning with a 2-stop strategy in Australia and finishing secondo with a 3-stop strategy in Spain, and if Lotus can do that, so can the others. They should shut their mouths and work harder to make the car more gentle on the tyres, full stop.

          Besides, it is well known (but maybe not as much as I thought) that the Circuit of Catalunya is particularly demanding on the tyres, especially the left-front. So I really don’t understand why everybody is shouting ‘Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, four stops!’ when we just raced on arguably the most tyre-demanding track on the F1 calendar.

          I understand your point on overtaking manoeuvres, but changing the tyres midway through the season is unfair to the teams who worked hard on that aspect.

          @Misteryoso, I totally agree with you.

        3. jimscreechy (@)
          14th May 2013, 16:59

          I agree completely

    2. I agree with you…Pirelli should not change the tires at this point in the season. They should tweak the compounds a bit and make some minor upgrades for 2013 and then work hard to bring completely new compounds on a new structure for 2014 (when everything changes anyway).

    3. @dragon88 – Could not agree more. Well put.

  8. Fair play to Pirelli – They are giving the poor confused fans and reporters what they are asking for. I’m not sure we are going to like what we get but we asked for it.

    Be careful what you wish for F1 fans!

    1. Fans, reporters but especially RBR lobbying. All that Horner, Masterischtz whining is paying off. Adapt or die should be Pirelli’s response

      1. @chemakal Yeah, I can see a tyre randomly delaminating through Eau Rouge or Blanchimont and someone dying for real.

        The way people are completely missing on the safety aspect of these tyres is bewildering me

        1. It would be totally acceptable if Pirelli changed their tyres solely because of the delamination issue.
          But it’s not the case. They are also trying to make them more durable, effectively being unfair to Lotus and Ferrari.

          1. jimscreechy (@)
            14th May 2013, 17:02

            You sound like one of those fans who accepts the current status simply because the team you support is ‘Currently’ benefitting, rather than because of enjoyment experience from watching proper racing…

          2. @jimscreechy – Not at all. I support it because I remember how bloody boring it was in the early 2000’s when Michael Schumacher, whom I supported wholeheartedly, won every race and the race was essentially a processions with the driver who took pole finishing first, the guy who qualified second coming home in second place and so forth.
            I think this is good for the sport. It’s a different challenge to what we were used to with the refuelling era, and I accept that some people may need a little time to adjust to this idea, but I quite like it.

            But the main point is that changing the cards on the table midway through the season is unfair to the teams that have produced a car that works even with these tyres. If they want to change, they should think about next year — unless they have the unanimity of all the teams about said changes.

          3. jimscreechy (@)
            14th May 2013, 18:51

            Oh and it’s not boing now? The race on Sunday was one of the most boring I have watched in… LEt me rephrase that. The “Event” (definately not race) on Sunday was one of the most boring for years.

            Plus I think you are misrepresenting the issue. You are using the ‘supposedly’ boring races of Shcumachers hayday as justification the shoddy spectacle that took plaace on Sunday, and the two are entirely unrelated. Additionally tyre manufacturers have adjusted compounds throughout the season as far back as when Adam was a lad. they do it and have done all the time. You’re protesting the compound adjustment like this is something new solely because your team happens to be one of those that performs particularly well on the playdough compound.

            YOu want interisting challenging racing but this is driving around doing nothing but tyre management? Now they drive at 80% but you think that is ok, so when does it become unacceptable for the peformance utilisation to fall too low? is 60% acceptable? how about 40% or 20%? where does it stop? Why make a car with this level of performance when you drive at 80%. Just reduce the performance then, and call A1 or GP2. If all you need to do is make a car thaat is light on its tyres while driving at a fraction of its capability, why not just line them up on friday and see which car can go the longest on a set of tyres and hand them the trophy since your not interested in seeing anything by a tyre conservation war.

          4. No, I don’t think Sunday’s race was boring.

            I’m just saying that I prefer Sunday’s race to a race where, because everyone went often flat-out, the finishing order was the same as the starting one.

            I also accept that the current configuration may be a little too much, and that perhaps one would wish to have 2 or 3 stops rather than 4. But I also think that Barcelona is a track that’s very heavy on the tyres.

            Not really, because first of all Ferrari is not even the car that can makes best use of the tyres, and secondly because when a couple of years back Ferrari couldn’t possibly make the hard tyres work, I wasn’t complaining about the tyres. Those were the tyres, we had to live with it. Now these are the tyres, and Red Bull and Mercedes should live with it.

          5. jimscreechy (@)
            14th May 2013, 19:25

            again you miss the point. It’s not about The Bulls and Mercs living with it. Its not about the Ferrari and the Lotus doing great with it. Its about the thrilling enjoyment of watching wheel to wheel racing, daring overtakes, cars fighting for position and drivers pushing their cars and track skills to the limit, it is about a love of motor racing, on track action and F1. I don’t care if its a Marussia on pole, a Williams fighting for the lead or Mclaren fighting for 10th, but I do want to see a race, and as I have said before NOT an excercise in tyre conservation.

          6. The part of possibly affecting the pecking order should not be ignored.

            Besides, Maldonado in 2012 won the race in 1h 39min 09.145s, Alonso this year made it in 1h 39min 16.596s; why is this 7 seconds difference so important?

            The tyres are a little less durable than last year – when they were fine – and according to Alonso he pushed at 90% for most of the race. Which is good racing.

            Unfortunately some cars have not got on top of the tyres, meaning they can’t push as much. But this shouldn’t mean that the tyres should be changed. The teams will get on top of their issues and will also be able to at 90% in the next few races.

          7. jimscreechy (@)
            14th May 2013, 20:56

            Pointless.

          8. @jimscreechy – I don’t ask you to agree with me at all, everybody is entitled to their own opinion. But you should be respectful to me and the other members of the community, otherwise I suggest you don’t become part of a community at all.

          9. It would be good if they can change the tires to make them safer but last the same, but somehow I think the tires are de-laminating because they wear too fast. Not a tire expert but I think these two issues are connected and it would be very hard to make the tire safer but last the same.

          10. jimscreechy (@)
            15th May 2013, 21:43

            @dragon You are not the moderator here. You do not dictate policy. It is definately not your perogative to dictate who’s opinions I respect. What are you, a self appointed adjudicator deciding who and whom are to be a part of the community based on your interpretation of worth. Ah like your opinion on the tyres… how apt.

          11. @Deb Luhi – I suppose that’s a good point although, not knowing enough of how Pirelli can control both durability and integrity of the tyres, it is difficult to say that it is impossible to correct the former without affecting the latter.

            @jimscreechy – I won’t even reply to you, it’s just a waste of time.

          12. jimscreechy (@)
            15th May 2013, 21:58

            LOL sending a relpy saying your not going to reply :O quality!

  9. I haven’t been the biggest fan of the racing thus far in 2013 and I’m certainly not unbiased when approaching the tyre issue (Ferrari fan) but I feel like this is such an unfair development. I felt the same way when EBD was drastically reduced in 2011. They’re moving the goal posts mid-season (not even) and completely invalidating the hard work some teams have done to properly understand the tyres. All the teams have the same tyres. Some have obviously done a better job. Unfortunately they lie in the minority.

    I completely get the need for structural change to the tyres – the delaminations are dangerous and unacceptable. However, I feel like compound changes are jumping the gun – Spain and Bahrain are two of the hardest circuits on tyres and the teams will eventually get on top of them. They always do.

    In saying that, I didn’t particularly enjoy Sunday’s race – four stops is excessive. But it’s the first race we’ve seen like that this season (unless my memory fails me) so I’m not sure why everyone seems to expect, and attacked Pirelli as if it were the case, that the rest of the season would be much of the same?

    Don’t get me wrong, I want to see the teams pushing, I want to see the cars being driven to the limit (with a good dose of strategy) and this year’s races haven’t been that great but I’m a big believer in keeping the goalposts the same for the ENTIRE season. Change it for next season. The other teams just have to suck it up and work harder for this year. Unfortunately, knee-jerk reactions seem to be the norm in this sport.

    I’m not blaming Pirelli, they’re only doing what’s been asked of them and it’s been equally unfair that they’ve been consistently lambasted since they came into the sport. It feels like fans are never happy – in 2012 all I read was that the racing was too unpredictable. Then before that in 2010 too predictable.

    I get the feeling after these changes the complaints aren’t likely to stop (yes I realise this entire comment has been a big, fat complaint, won’t happen again). Pretty disappointed that this has happened. I just hope it won’t change the order as much as I think it will and that the racing will truly benefit.

  10. I don’t have a problem with Pirelli’s decision favoring some teams over others, if it’s good for F1 and genuinely made in order to make racing better. The problem is that (judging from the comments RBR has made and the performance of their car) Red Bull has made little to adapt to the current tyres and instead developed their car the way it is and counted on their lobbying (read: whining) to eventually pay off.

  11. I think the 4 stop strategy on the HARD and MEDIUM tyre was too much, normally they would give 2 stop strategy, so hopefully thats changed. But they must change the delaminating of the tyres, its just ridicolous, how many have we seen in Bahrain and Barcelona? Too many. If this hands the initiative back to RBR and Vettel and he runs away with the title will people complain?

    1. Even with 4 stops Drivers can’t push through out the stint.
      It doesn’t matter who wins the Title. It was a Long way still but the Point is we are getting Robbed of Great Battles by Great Drivers of Current Generation how many would like to see a Vettel V Hamilton Battle like Austin 2012 or Spain 2011 between Top 4 Best Drivers.
      Currently there is no Defensive Racing If you go for Defending your Strategy was ruined and It was not the F1 we wanted.
      We just wanted to see Drivers going 80% of stint flat out like last two years than Going 80% of pace through out the race.

      1. Alonso said that he was pushing at about 90% with the strategy he and his team decided to opt on Sunday. That’s 10 percentage points higher than what “we just wanted to see”.

        @harsha

        1. I read a statement of Fernando Him self pointed out that it was too confusing whether to push or not @tmket I don’t remember it was said before or after Spain.
          Clearly this is not the case in last years. We saw Tires needed to manage but not at this level. Also Pirelli them selves thing this got extreme.

  12. To the fans that are coplaining loudly, what would be your solution, to bring REAL racing and exciting?

    1. @m0nzaman
      That’s a very tough question to answer.
      But I’d like to see these drivers pushing all out throughout the race, and make driver errors whilst at it…

      At the momemt is Merc really fastest in quali, or are other teams just letting have that coz they are more worried about the race? Hard to tell…
      Did Ferrari and FI do something ingenius to manage these tyres or were they just licky it turned out that way? Hard to tell…

      Either way we need real racing back. Pirelli has been directing this ‘movie’ for far too long now.

    2. Here my friend, is the solution –

      – Consistent performance that allows a driver to race and push. Whatever amount of laps the tyres last for, the drivers should be able to get performance out of them during those laps.

      – Less degradation. The tyre must last more laps, so we do not have 5-6 pitstops. The Soft in China lasted a single lap before performance droped off. People were shedding it after 3 laps, and it was used for a maximum of 7 laps in the race. That is surely ridiculous

      – No marbles (wear). Littering the track with marbles is killing racing/overtaking off the racing line. Tyres can wear without littering the track with marbles. Michellin and Brigdestone achieved this. Why can’t Pireli?

      – Consistent operating window. This would allow the teams to set up their car with some degree of knowledge and predictability. At least you know what would happen if the temp drops or increases with some degree of certainty.

      None of this is complicated, none of this would lead to single pit stop races (though there is nothing inherently wrong with that), none of this would lead to “processions”, and none of this would favour any sigle team. So, the questions is, why is it so difficult to do? We do not want ultra durable tyres with no drop off in performance, no wear and no degradation. This is as extreme as what we have today. There is a lot of balance to be had in the middle ground.
      Why the tyre supporters can’t see that is really beyond me.

    3. 2 stops with some nursing. 3 stops hard pushing. No Drs. Wider tyres. Less aero.

      1. Mostly agree, but I would actually like more aero and bigger (huge if possible) engines, boosted by better KERS (or ERS) units. :D

      2. (@john-h)

        2 stops with some nursing. 3 stops hard pushing. No Drs. Wider tyres. Less aero.

        +1.

    4. Good question.

      My quick list:

      Linear or parabolic degradation curve for tires. Not a cliff. And the tire must sustain some period of flat-out driving without immediate destruction if only for a few laps. The novely to of seeing a car drop 5 seconds in pace in one lap is so dramatic but it does not produce racing.

      Also, the tires should be able to come back a bit unless they are on their last stages. A driver should be able to back off and then come back again on the pace.

      DRS has to go. What exactly did it add sunday? Or it should be reserved for the real tough tracks to pass on and carefully worked so that it only allows a car with a 1s advantage to get alongside in the braking zone, not blow by halfway down the straight. Now with the magic tires, very few courses are tough to pass on. If we must persist with button-passing, I would prefer Indy-style push to pass. Drivers have to use judgement it its use over a race. They can’t just mash it whenever they like, because there is a finite amount of pushes available.

      I’ve never been with the Less Aero movement. As long as the cars move through the air, aero efficiency will be vital. In any event, we have totally stopped talking aobut how you can’t pass because of wake, because of the tires and DRS. We can walk back a long way on both of these now before aero-wake is an issue again. Furthermore high downforce is what separates the fastest race cars from the WOO—giant engines, no downforce. And it’s what in part makes it very difficult to drive an F1 car—it increases the need for precision and reaction time. (I know this of course because I drove an MP4-23 to work today, okay?)

  13. I think the paragraph should have read:

    “The changes are being made to guard against a repeat of Sunday’s race in Spain, where Bernie’s pet-boy was defenseless against those teams who actually designed their car to work properly with the 2013 tires.”

    I find this change absolutely outrageous! Ever since day one there has been strong complaints about the artificial tire degradation from everywhere – including very influential people like Michael Schumacher. Now all of sudden – five races in to the season – it has to change because some teams are actually making it work. (Read the WRONG teams!)

    After 42 years I am seriously close to throwing in the towel. I already hate artificial overtaking, artificial degradation and teams running clearly illegal difusers so everyone else has to play catch up, but now that’s not even enough! Let’s completely change the conditions mid-season so we can get “the right people” on the top step!!

    Disgusting! Is this even a sport anymore??

    1. “The changes are being made to guard against a repeat of Sunday’s race in Spain, where Bernie’s pet-boy was defenseless against those teams who actually designed their car to work properly with the 2013 tires.”

      Agreed.

    2. I agree with most of that too!

    3. @poul The reason Pirelli haven’t changed their tires until now is because Pirelli by their own admission didn’t get them right, they aimed for 2-3 stops and got 4 and we have seen a few delaminations plus Alonso getting a puncture without any contact with another car. Clearly something had to change and that’s what just about everybody on this site has been saying, that the tires need to change.

      These are all good reasons for Pirellis decision, much more likely than “we must help Vettel! He could ONLY manage fourth this race, and he ONLY managed two wins in five this season on the SAME tyres”

      If you hate artificial degradation and artificial overtaking so much, no doubt you have been hoping for more durable compounds for a while now. So why aren’t you happy when Pirelli finally give you them?

      1. Just because I prefer real race tires doesn’t mean I want to see major changes mid-season. It’s insane amounts of work and money the teams have put into balancing the cars with these tires without compromising down force too much. Then…. all of a sudden we need a reset??

        If it wasn’t because it had such a huge impact on so many people it would be laughable that the ever so tire-eating Spanish GP is used as a scapegoat to force this through.

        And why are everybody saying: “Ohh, it’s a safety issue, something has to be done” when Pirelli clearly says it is NOT a safety issue??

    4. @poul fully agree with you. I am one of those who was never pleased with the direction F1 took by aiming degradable tires and DRS. Fair point about Schumacher. I remember when he came out and said that it was like driving on raw eggs, almost every one got onto him. Now, a year later, almost every one wants more durable tires. Well, we asked for it, we are served.

      1. Red Bull are pathetic, nothing but pathetic. Their ego is huge. They believe the sport evolves around them and blame Pirelli for the tyres, even though everyone else has the same tyres.

  14. The trouble with all of this is that the teams are their own worst enemies really and heres my reasoning for that. If Pirelli were to provide them with tyres that enabled them to go flat out for their life with performance slowly tapering down rather than a cliff and the compound used resulted in say 3 stops of flat out driving… they would no doubt calculate that they could then do 2 stops with not quite so fast driving, say 80-90% and save a pit stop and will end up faster overall… end result is that the tyres are there to provide what the fans want to see, but they’ll calculate thats not the best way to run the race and so we end up with a similar situation to what we have now, generally speaking that is.

    Clearly Barcelona was too extreme.

    As others have said, i hope that this tyre change doesnt result in dramatic changes in the pecking order as that will basically be the result of those teams unable to win moaning the most (RBR) and those having done the best job being penalised. Lets face it, MERC havent been complaining like RBR and they would likely stand to gain the most from tyres with more longevity and a change to aid the overheating issues they suffer with as they seem to have the fastest car in Quali trim.

    On a side, i see a lot of talk about Indycar being better these days, so i’m gonna try catching a race or 2 of that to see.

  15. I think the ideal scenario for the tyres is one where a two-stop strategy and a three-stop strategy are equally viable. We sort of saw this in Spain, with the teams working on three- and four-stop strategies.

    As for degradation, I like the idea that the drivers cannot push 100% of the time. Instead, I think the tryes should degrade in such a way that if the drivers manage them properly, they will have a little extra grip to mount an attack on the car in front at exactly the right moment.

    In short, the tyres should be about compromise. For every choice the driver is offered, there should be obvious gains and losses that balance each choice out so that no one choice is perfect, and that the deciding factor in whether or not a strategy works is always the driver.

    1. This is ridiculous!

      1. Oh my, this ended up completely in the wrong place. Sorry, Prisoner Monkey.

    2. @prisoner-monkeys agreed, although I’d say 1 or 2 is preferable and I’d get rid of the rules which state both compounds have to be used and the top-10 qualifying rule.

    3. 23kennyboy23
      15th May 2013, 10:22

      Remember Alonso’s driving in Monaco 2012? Was very clever to not follow too close behind the car infront at the start of stints then push like mad having saved a bit for the end. That’s the sort of stuff I like to see. I think he ended up passing through the pit stops because it’s monaco but ideally this would lead to on-track attacks.

  16. Same time, next year.
    Mateschitz “This is outrageous. How can they make those straights so long. Tracks demanding straight-line speed are abominations. F1 is not racing anymore. FIA should think about what they’re doing and shorten every straight to at most 300 meters. It’s not about our car being slow on the straights, it’s about what fans and media want”

    1. (@cyclops_pl)
      COTD for sure.

  17. Whenever i think about the most stress, anticipation and enjoyment i felt in a normal dry race in the past two years two instances come to mind, and both included the same drivers, Vettel and Hamilton in Austin 12′ and Barcelona 11′, just seeing two drivers in top form, spend half of the race distance without more than a car length between them, and neither making the smallest mistake and giving the other a chance to take him, and judging by the close performance of the cars last season and this season, i hope and think we will get a lot more fights like these with more durable tyres.

    1. Continuous wheel to wheel racing, with no one thinking much about tyres.
      I miss that too :(

  18. If rb get a 1-2 in canada and fertari and lotus are behind merc they should change straight back. if pirelli got tyre wrong so be it all had an equal chance and change next season. rb had ebd banned one race then it had to come back. this makes me feel like how rb smells…..sick.

  19. By the way. I can see people here who were happy about downforce being cut, giving us better racing post-2011, and now criticize Pirelli for bringing tires which effectively prevent returning to the same level of downforce which we saw in 2011. Make up your mind, please. Red Bull are moaning, because their car, as it always was, is based around the concept of maximizing downforce – making it a perfect weapon for pole-to-flag wins. They are probably pretty close to regaining the downforce lost as a result of regulations changes post-2011. Nobody will say this aloud but this year’s Pirellis were also targeted at preventing teams from regaining downforce, and even if they already did that, preventing them from using it. Teams can find loopholes in aero regulations, they can’t however change the behavior and durability of tires – they must adapt.

    Some fans tend to forget that huge amounts of downforce resulted in processions, wins by huge margins and racing effectively ending on Saturday. Nobody should care that a certain team cannot live without excessive downforce and nobody should yield to said team’s demands. When Red Bull say they have the fastest car and can’t use it, they mean they have the most downforce and can’t get away with that. Mercedes problem is also with downforce, albeit only in the rear part of the car. There is too much pressure on the rear axle thus their rears are gone instantly.

    With regulations consistently targeted at reducing downforce, the tires provided by Pirelli were the perfect match to that very purpose. Now Pirelli is basically opening the door for getting around the aero regulations.

    1. So lets:
      1. Expose drivers to danger with tyres
      2. Destroy that killer instinct (we so much enjoy in F1 drivers)
      3. Reduce the impact of all other technological advancements
      4 etc…
      Just to Redbull?
      As long as somebody wins (and someone always will) we should be OK, doesn’t matter how sandboxed their win was.
      I say we give the drivers the best tools we can and open the flood gates!

    2. @cyclops_pl Disagree.

      Nobody will say this aloud but this year’s Pirellis were also targeted at preventing teams from regaining downforce

      The reason why we have a single tyre supplier is so that tyres are not such a huge performance variable between teams. If tyres were to control performance between teams, then bring back two or three suppliers and have a tyre war – sure it would be a terrible idea, but it would accomplish the task of being decisive to the performance of the cars much more effectively.

      I don’t know, maybe I have a very different view of F1 than you, but if the tyres are to limit the downforce of the cars, then why bother making 11 different cars? If the tyres can only handle GP2 levels of downforce, then turn F1 into a spec series, because I don’t think it’s justifiable to spend millions in a aero programme when you can’t even use what you developed. If Red Bull and Mercedes are exceeding the downforce levels, should they just scale back so all teams have the same level of downforce while spending millions building an unique car? I’m sorry, but that sounds utterly ridiculous.

      F1 is about how much performance you can get out of a set of regulations. Limiting performance by developing rubbish tyres not only is unsafe and as artificial as you can get, but it’s also stupid. If that was their goal, they might as well have set fixed downforce and drag values on the regulations and turned F1 into a spec series already.

      The bottom line is, these tyres are dangerous, and if they can’t handle the forces generated by an F1 car (which are not as intense as they were a decade ago), they shouldn’t have a place in F1 to begin with. I applaud Pirelli for making these changes, but the way they painted Red Bull as some the villian of the story (and the way 99% if the F1 fanbase jumped on the bandwagon immediately) is just ridiculous.

      1. @guilherme

        2005 US GP – Micheline’s were dangerous. Current Pirelli’s are just irritating for some, easy to handle for others.

        @jason12

        Please, enlighten me, what killer instinct are you talking about while driving 10s or more apart any other driver, getting 1+ seconds behind in Q. Where is this killer instinct being honed during processional races, when excessive downforce ruins everything? And as I said before, the danger to drivers derived from the tires in no greater than it was before and certainly is much lesser than it was in case of real tire disasters.

    3. How can you possibly argue that comedy tires should be the tool to contain lower aero levels? What happened to proper aero regulations COMBINED with proper tires?

      I think these tires are absolutely silly but they are also what the teams designed their cars for. Hence, they should leave them for the season and use that as the final nail in the coffin to go back to real race tires.

  20. May 13, 2013
    Pirelli keen to avoid claim of Red Bull favouritism

    May 14, 2013
    Pirelli bring tyre changes forward to Canada

    “well that escalated quickly”
    This is pure competition distortion and a lack of respect towards the teams that did their winter homework. Another bad day for ‘modern’ F1. How powerfull has Red Bull become I do wonder?

  21. Who will be the new Cinderella(s)? Will it be new at all? The people who desire unpredictibility certainly will get more of it. Atleast for a while.

  22. The change is good, we can’t have 4 stops. The problem is Hembery commenting on individual teams explicitly, then being unclear as to when changes are being made. If I were a Ferrari or Lotus fan, I would be pretty annoyed about this.

    1. But John, WHY can’t we have four stops? If the Barcelona had four most other GP’s will only have three while the few teams who designed properly for the tires will only have two. How is that even a problem?

      For the teams who failed grossly like Merc; surely it’s a problem so why don’t we change the tires and rules to fit their car better……

  23. 3 months of whining over tyres degrading wayyy too quickly and when we finally go back to the compounds that allowed one-stop strategies in the second half of last year…not a single positive comment.

    You have to be amazed with the users of this site.

    1. On a more serious note though, I’m worried what kind of message this sends to the teams. There seems to be some teams that can design a car to their liking and through a clever marketing strategy towards the sport’s deciding powers can change the regulations to favor their car instead of having to adapt themselves. This awards the teams that failed with their designs.

      I’m not gonna say that this ruins the sport because it doesn’t. The previously succeeding teams now have to suck up their disappointment and deal with it. But that doesn’t make it any more fair as they are now being robbed off the status they fully deserved.

      I personally can live perfectly fine with both kinds of tyres. They both produce equally “real” racing. Racing doesn’t equal to pushing 100 % all the time or who conserves tyres the best. It equals to a sporting event in which the one who moves from point A to point B the fastest, wins. Everybody has to follow the rules and find the way to achieve the best result themselves. Unless F1 starts randomly rewarding the winner regardless of how they ended up in the results it will always be real racing no matter what the equipment is or isn’t.

      1. I don’t like either tire but point is that these are championship deciding changes that are introduced mid-season. How does that not ruin the sport?

        It is exactly the same as saying: “Let’s favor these teams instead of those teams”!

  24. So, Ferrari and Lotus’s last chance to win a race in 2013: Grand Prix de Monaco…

    1. @wsrgo Lotus maybe, but I don’t see why Ferrari would stop winning. They car is bloody quick, and if they can push on these tyres, surely they can push even more in more durable compounds.

      1. Their car is bloody quick

  25. I’ve not been an enormous fan of the 2013 Pirellis, but to change them mid-season is completely unfair.

    When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, which is exactly what Ferrari and Lotus are doing – and good on them. Meanwhile Red Bull and Mercedes are kicking and screaming because they wanted oranges, and sadly they’re getting them.

  26. And one other thing. Couple interesting numbers (please point out any errors, I tried my best not to make any):

    Spain GP 2011: 1. Sebastian Vettel, 4 stops (laps 9, 18, 34, 48). Overall 77 stops in the race.
    Spain GP 2013: 1. Fernando Alonso, 4 stops (laps 9, 21, 36, 49). Overall 77 stops in the race

    Find the difference. So was 2011 about racing, Mr. Mateschitz?

    1. The funny thing and hypocritical at the same time that the 2 teams who have been moaning about tyres for 3 months and justifying it for the sake of the sport,racing and the fans ….blablablablabla
      are the same teams that in the first opportunity in the season that saw their drivers racing each other on the 2nd race of the calendar deployed team orders and killed the race (from the spectators perspective the same excuse that they are using now & BTW i’m not against team orders)
      So Red Bull & Mercedes are the last teams that should talk about racing,fans……

    2. Red Bull being hypocrite, I would never have guessed…

    3. Red Bull being hypocrites, I would never have guessed…

    4. @jcost Where are you now?

  27. A mid-season tyre change that favors the reigning three-time world champion from Germany threatens to screw Kimi Raikkonen out of the title. Shades of 2003?

  28. Stop changing things!! All the teams, even RBR, would be okay if there was some consistency in the tyre compounds from race to race. How do they design a car if the rubber keeps changing.

  29. Lewis Hamilton just got handed a get out of jail free card, avoiding many embarressments like his Barcelona drive. And now Redbull and Vettel will be champions again. THANKYOU f1 fans who do not like having to see drivers having to get the best out of their package to get a good result. instead many of you want to see drivers having it easy, and processional races. Pirelli heard you loud and clear.

    1. Calm down. These new tyres wont change anything, those who used them nice before will just be able to push more. Reverting back to an old tyre spec isnt going to make Merc suddenly fix the tyre issues theyve suffered with for the past 3 seasons. Deep breaths, mate..

      1. As you can see in qualifying Merc has A LOT of downforce. The more durable the tires, the better they can utilize it.

  30. OMG Pirelli are bowing to Red Bull! blatant favouritism…

  31. Mr Bernie Ecclestone is loving this…..first the Vettel-Webber Rivalry. Then the Tire Wars …. F1 is become a media darling. I am guessing that CNN might get into F1 broadcast now. This is getting better than Politics. Everyday breaking news…. :)

  32. No idea why people are crying so much. If new tyres are durable and one team starts dominating, then people will again complain that F1 is boring.

    1. Exactly.
      But people never stop complaining, do they?

    2. @nin13 that’s because you seem to think there is simply the option of super-durable tyres or 4-stoppers. There’s plenty of middle ground, which is what Pirelli are trying to strike.

      I highly doubt one team would dominate anyway: the grid is far too close for that.

    1. I’m too a bit mystified to why they changed last year’s compound, unless they want teams to spend first few races teams to figure out the tyres every year.

      1. Well, that’s exactly the reason why they’ve done it.
        If they give the same tyres to the teams every year, the engineers would soon understand how to optimise their car’s performance whilst being kind of the tyres, meaning that the number of pit-stops would steadily decrease to probably 1 per race.

  33. Last year Pirelli handed the championship to Red Bull by going completely conservative in the last third of the season.
    It’s not really all that unexpected that they are going to help Bernie’s golden buy win another WDC. After all, Bernie is there to make sure every little decision goes Red Bull’s way. During the season, that can accumulate to just enough to beat the opposition by a handful of points.

  34. A couple of things. How do we know that Red Bull is going to dominate after this change? Seriously, there’s nothing to suggest that. The fastest car over one lap is clearly the Mercedes, the best cars on Sundays are Ferrari and Lotus. Sure, Red Bull has been complaining about these tyres probably because they think they can gain something, but I just don’t see a Red Bull domination. The rules are really strict, the field is quite close.

    Pirelli is changing the tyres because they can’t do anything else. Admitting your own fault and changing everything is a massive blow, no one would do that. Pirelli, the one and only tyre supplier in Formula 1 (which is one of the most famous motorsports in the world), misjudged. It sounds awful, and I’m sure it’s not easy for them.
    If they kept these tyres, their reputation would be even worse than it is now. They wouldn’t have changed them otherwise.

    I think that Hembery was a bit naive yesterday. He already said that they would change something and he knew that the media would go crazy, so he tried to calm them down saying that they don’t want to give Red Bull an advantage. It was a bad move, I guess, because most of the people yesterday read “Pirelli, bla bla bla, fauvoritism, bla bla bla, Red Bull, bla bla bla, tyres”. Today “Pirelli brings tyre changes”. And now everyone thinks that Pirelli did this because Red Bull ordered them.

    What I want to say is that Pirelli had to do something. They will be overwhelmed by criticism, but they think it’s the best decision, and I think it is, too.

    1. The fastest car over one lap is clearly the Mercedes

      No true on heavy fuel….

  35. the whole tyre situation this year shows how utterly absurd pirelli’s brief was to begin with & i actually said back in 2010 when what pirelli were asked to do was was made public that we would eventually reach a situation like we see today.

    the tyres pirelli created for 2013 were pathetic & needed to be changed, however equally changing them in a way that even allows the perception that a team is been favored & a team is been hurt by the changes is equally dumb.

    all it shows is how pathetically artificial f1 has become & just how far away from been the pinnacle of anything its become!

  36. wow, took them this long to notice? and besides, since the cars this year are faster as it is, this will put more load on the tyres than last season so that will make them wear a bit faster, so 2012’s tyres would be the perfect balance between wear and performance, as they almost were/were last season.

  37. Kimi must be bursting a vein or turning to drink soon. He’s finally in with a chance to actually win WDC and then they go and change the tyres that are working so well for him at the moment.

  38. Bernie saying what I’ve been saying since the start of the year, That despite what Paul Hembrey & the fans of Pirelli constantly say, They have NOT done what they were asked to do & have gone way further than what they were actually asked to:

    “The tyres are wrong, not what we intended when we asked Pirelli to produce something which did a half race”

  39. I don’t understand why people say that some teams have done better job to make their cars for existing tires. because all teams get those tires in their possession ONLY in da first per-season testing. by that times all cars are already designed. so how come Ferrari and Lotus did a better job? they just got lucky.

    1. Exactly. In Ferrari’s case there might be something apart from sheer luck, but the Lotus E21 is pretty much an evolution of the 2010 Renault which is Pirelli’s development car.
      It’s hugely hypocritical of Lotus to bash other teams for complaining about the tyres when they are pretty much designed for their car…
      This all doesn’t mean it’s OK to change things in the middle of the season but all the crap was stirred up by FIA/Bernie/whoever else has been trying to drag down RBR to reduce their dominance (it isn’t specifically RBR they target, it could be any other team getting too strong…)

      1. in that case F1 is more like a reality show than a sport. the best team and driver should win always. and nobody should throw a stick in their spokes.

        me personally enjoyed a Ferrari dominance a lot. I witnessed a historical achievements.

    2. by that times all cars are already designed. so how come Ferrari and Lotus did a better job? they just got lucky.

      @latvian So you mean to say that none of the teams developed their cars post those few days of winter testing? What is the point of testing then? Just to see their cars can run a lap or two? Agreed that there are not much of structural changes visible to the naked eye between the car unveiled and the car that raced in Melbourne. Almost all the teams do develop their cars after winter testing as well as in-season. It is not like a good night’s dream, they end up with a car that handles its tyres pretty well compared to its competitors.

  40. What are the protocols on such decisions? Does every team have to agree like with testing? Ferrari would never lie down if it erroded an advantage so that the change is happening and not a word from ferrari means this must be good for them? Pirelli must have given details of what they want to achieve and ferrari must feel its good for them. i hope the new tyres bri.g bigger issues for rb and ferrari + lotus hammer them by an even greater margin in canada, then what? Have rb made an agreement about testing to get ferrari on board? The stories behind the headlines might be very complex.

  41. ferrari does employ Bridgestones former technical chief, no other team boasts such an advantage. And to say this change only helps a few is myopic and silly. Everyone from Ferrari to Lotus has said that they are only driving at around 80%. Well, Force India might actually have to prove they have a good car and not one that is easy on tires.

  42. I think this is getting silly.

    First: if Lotus, Ferrari and Force India can do so much good with these tyres, wouldn´t be safe to asume that they will still be good with the new modification? They could be races where Lotus only has to do one or two stops. So I don´t see a reason to feel sorry for them. And two days a go everyone (Mercedes, Lotus, Alonso, Button, Perez, McLaren) was crying about what an horrible race Barcelona was so people better start remember that.

    Second: I dont watch F1 to see drivers let in themself get pass. So I wanna see racing and if this new tyres gonna allow racing bring it on.

    Third: Safety was a concern with this tyres, so maybe people should think in the well being of the drivers.

    When Pirelli says the tyres from Canada will be more like 2012 tyres what does that mean?

    The 2012 tyres were more durable than this year’s tyres, which suffer from high degradation. Pirelli has indicated that it will change the construction of the tyres to be more like the 2012 products.

    The 2013 tyres have a different construction from the 2012 products, with a steel belt inside the tyre in place of last year’s kevlar belt. It is likely that this decision will be reversed with the revised tyres, as Pirelli moves back to a proven solution.

    The weakness of the 2012 tyres was wear; typically the inside shoulder of the tyres would wear out and teams would run the tyre until there was no rubber left on the shoulder and then make a pit stop. However the teams understood how to manage them quite well by the end of the season.

    For 2013 Pirelli tried to fix the wear problem by getting the contact patch of the tyre more reasonably positioned, but it seems that in changing the construction to achieve this they have gone too far.

    Although the reason given for the change is that four stops is considered too many for a race and they would like to reduce that to two or three stops, there is also the safety aspect in light of the tyre failures in Bahrain and Spain. In changing the construction, they have obviously done something to affect the tyre’s integrity.

    So don´t come saying that this is only because of Red Bull

  43. Fantastic news!
    In all fairness, the delaminations, slow punctures and tyres generally ripping themselves to shreds was becoming a worry if anything.
    I understand completely where people are coming from in the defence of Ferrari and Lotus’ ability to compromise their cars correctly for the current tyres to perform well on their cars.
    However if you look at it from RBR/Mercedes point of view, they are only being shot in the foot for producing cars that don’t perform as well on the tyres, now the balance has shifted, Ferrari/Lotus are being shot in the foot for not producing cars with enough downforce to compete with the quicker cars, it seems whatever Pirelli chose to do, the disadvantaged teams would have to adapt to compete, only by going down this route we have a few positives:
    1) Safer tyres that aren’t going to shred themselves.
    2) Tyres that allow drivers to push harder, thus focus more on racing, opposed to tyre strategy
    3) Less Pit stops

    I am no Red Bull fan, infact, I have found seeing Sebastian Vettel cruising to three titles painful if anything, but I’d see him win a fourth any day over the utter nonsense I saw in Barcelona.

    But being a Hamilton fan, maybe I’m biased ;)

    1. +1

      I really can’t stand Vettel, but I’d much rather he cruised to a 4th title than watch another ‘race’ like Spain. I don’t want the worlds best drivers say “I can’t drive any slower” or asking “Are you sure I can race?”

      I say give them overly hard tires like they did in Austin 2012… lets the cars race 100% in a low mechanical grip environment.

  44. Since new parts are in development for months, this big change means that many teams will have their 2 or 3 months worth of work thrown to trash basically. Since the pre-season testing it was obvious that tires are yet to be mastered, so many developments will be targeted at addressing the tire issues.
    Now, with this change, it means all the development that went into improving tire usage will go down the drain. And not only that. The different aerodynamic characteristics of the new tires means that many teams will find their successful aero updates suddenly not working.
    This is complete farce.

  45. I see a pattern in this thread. People who tolerate comedy tyres are the people who are happy Red Bull isn’t winning. They are selfish because they want to see their own teams win. I paid money to watch cars being pushed, not tyres deciding how much a car can be pushed, or tyres degrading. For those who love this tyres, there’s a better sport for you. Go to youtube and search ‘tire burning’. It would roughly amount to what you are watching now. -cough- James -cough-

  46. I’ve been at two F1 races this year, Melbourne and Spain. The tyres are a joke. We nolonger see the guys racing as much as they are baby sitting thieir tyres. I’m also concerned about the vast amount of clag that scrubs off them narrowing the actual track. I agree with David Coultard that its a serious accident that’s waiting to happen. I’m young bu have watched formual 1 since 2000 and think the 2 tyre compunds are a gimmick. I would much rather see fuel stops with the teams given the option of how much furel thay want to start with after Q3. That way its not about tyres but allows strategy for number of pit stops and car weights and speeds accordingly. F1 is losing TV ratings around the world. Who wants to talk about tyres…when it should be about driver skill and car design.

  47. If possible the week before Canada the F1A should find a place and let all teams test all the compounds and the F1A should foot the bill. This would give at least some expectations as to where the new tires are for everyone.

    I know, not happening but a reset is not fair to any of the teams imo.

  48. I’ll wait and see how the tyres actually perform but I’ll look back on this in hindsight and say this is BS if Vettel runs away with the championship the rest of the season.

  49. Results Barcelona 2011 when RedBull with Vettel just had a walk through the seasson to win with over 120 points to 2nd:

    1. Vettel – 4 pit stops
    2. Ham – 4
    3. Button – 3
    4. Webber – 4
    5. Alo – 4

    2011 – Total pit stops: 77 with 21 cars finishing
    2013 – Total pit stops: 81 with 19 cars finishing

    Don’t remember Horner or Mateschitz whinning back then…

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