Hungary tyre changes will affect title battle – Rosberg

2013 German Grand Prix

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Nico Rosberg expects the revised tyres Pirelli will introduce at the Hungarian Grand Prix to shake up the competitive order and affect the battle for the title.

Pirelli plans to change its tyres from the Hungarian Grand Prix to combine 2012-style construction with the compounds used this year.

Rosberg said “it’s very likely that it’s going to have an impact on performances, differences, qualifying, race”.

“So it will be interesting and it’s possible it’s going to mix things up a little bit,” he added.

Rosberg sees that as a chance for Mercedes to gain ground on their rivals: “It’s also an opportunity, yeah, for us in the team to try and understand it better, earlier than other people and try to make the most of it.”

Championship leader Sebastian Vettel was more cautious on the potential effect of the changes: “I think it’s difficult to foresee what’s going to happen, as people said, but I think Pirelli has absolutely no interest in trying to shuffle things around.”

“They tried to, obviously, supply every team with a tyre. Whether you like it or not is completely up to you. But I think as we learned last weekend it has to be safe.”

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    23 comments on “Hungary tyre changes will affect title battle – Rosberg”

    1. Are they changing to the tyres that Merc tested?

      1. I doubt it. Pirelli and the FIA have access to all of it. Would be a seriously stupid move for Pirelli to do it. Moreover, Merc didn’t collect data that supposedly isn’t accessible so even if it was changed to those compounds, Merc shouldn’t have an inkling of extra data over anyone else.

      2. No. Those were development tyres for 2014, so nothing that will be used on track this year, and even for next year they are more like input in what Pirelli are doing for next year than any finalized compounds and carcasses.

    2. The focus is on safety.
      How those improvements affect car performance is secondary.

    3. Say the one who test…(he must know what his talking about)

      1. *says
        *he’s

        Sorry :O

    4. Shreyas Mohanty (@)
      4th July 2013, 16:23

      Hah. He just means him and Lewis will get better with their test and the change in tyres playing right into Merc’s hands. So much for Alonso’s title chances. *sigh* The YDT will be the last chance for the Scuderia, I suppose.

      1. petebaldwin (@)
        4th July 2013, 16:30

        How will is play into Merc’s hands though? They tested next year’s tyres whereas the rest of the teams will get to test the exact tyres that will be used in Hungary.

        I can’t see how Merc get any sort of advantage there…

        1. We dont really know what they tested. For all we know, the new tyres they will be using in germany are in fact next years tyres.

        2. Shreyas Mohanty (@)
          4th July 2013, 21:42

          @petebaldwin It has been clear that the new tyres will favour Merc and RBR – that’s why they had been vetoed out by SF, FIM, and Lotus in the first place.

          Agree with you @joshua-mesh

        3. They tested next year’s tyres

          They also tested the revised Kevlar belted 2013 tyre.

      2. Yeh because Alo had a chance lol, ;RollEyes:

      3. The YDT will be the last chance for the Scuderia, I suppose.

        Alonso said that he will boycott the YDT in Silverstone unless Ferrari order him to do so (which i hope) because he doesn’t want to do the Pirelli test driver role

        1. Shreyas Mohanty (@)
          4th July 2013, 21:38

          @tifoso1989 Yeah I heard about that. I think he will do the test though – he does want the title.

    5. I think we will just have to wait and see how the new tires affect every car and team. Merc may not have the relatively strong quali perfomances if Red Bull, Ferrari, and Lotus for example become better on Saturdays due to the new tires. ie. I think it is folly to assume that the fallout from revised tires will only be that Mercedes will retain their quali advantage but now be stronger in the races. It may well be very different and Mercedes could find themselves shuffling back down the order if Ferrari and Lotus get back to performing at the level where they appeared to be earlier in the season.

    6. As I’ve said before, this could potentially benefit McLaren quite a lot given that a good deal of their troubles are related to the exhaust and the rear of the car. The side wall of the tyre creates something known as ‘tyre squirt’ which can really effect the performance of the exhaust blowing. Obviously it won’t be the whole of their troubles, but it would be one hell of a story if McLaren and Mercedes started fighting at the front. Just imagine the implications on the Championship!

      1. I for one really hope it helps them, because it’s torture to see them down in the teens in qualifying and the race!

      2. McLarens troubles are more to do with the wrongly predicted wake of their front suspension is the latest I heard about them (I think it was from both Ted’s notebook and from the BBC at Silverstone) @jamiefranklinf1, so its unlikely they will benefit from this.

    7. Changing the tyres means a drop in operating temperature. Does this mean Lotus and Ferrari will be stronger in qualifying because they often struggle to get the tyres to the right temperature.

    8. And sauber goes into podium contention with FI languishing in the bottom 4.

    9. The “original” 2013 tyres were handed – that is, they had left-hand and right-hand tyres. Certain teams found a performance advantage in switching them around. For some reason no reporter knows (or will say) exactly which teams those were, but it seems likely that initially it was Ferrari, Lotus, and Force India.

      At the illegal Barcelona tyre test Mercedes figured out how to successfully reverse the tyres. At least it was only after that test they they were observed doing it, and they gained a noticeable advantage from it. It seems that Red Bull have not been using this trick.

      The new Kevlar belted tyres will not be “handed” so this will all become moot going forward. In that sense Merc, Ferrari, FI and Lotus stand to lose an advantage over RB. But in the sense that the old tyres were artificially slowing most teams down, it’s likely that Merc and Ferrari will gain as much as they lose while FI and Lotus will lose ground.

      1. Red Bull and Mercedes have been swapping their tyres from Australia onwards, as have many of the others @jonsan.

        So its not something pioneered by the teams who do make the tyres word (I think Ferrari have been doing it too though), but Mercedes have been doing it at some tracks before their Barcelona test, its not something they “learned from the test”.

    10. Only after this Sunday’s race and the next race in Hungary can we come to some logical conclusion about the revised tyres and their impact on performance. Till then, it is all theory.

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