F1 Fanatic

Formula 1 is more spectacular since Pirelli have become the tyre suppliers. End of discussion for me. Before people demanded exciting races and they got it. Now you want back to the previous situation. It is impossible to please everybody, but more people like F1 the way it’s today so the short answer is no, drivers have to adapt, Schumacher wouldn’t have been so loud if he was winning.

What I find most ironic is that people often highlight Hamilton one of the drivers most stifled by the Pirellis. People wanted tyres that degraded so quickly because when we had Bridgestones, most of the dry races were considered boring except for Canada 2010, where tyre wear was extremely high. But who won that race from pole? :)

@David-A That’s a good point. It is a common and tiresome misconception that Hamilton can’t look after his tyres. Just look at Bahrain last weekend in fact, when his tyres lasted longer than Buttons, despite being in Jenson’s dirty air for the majority of his second stint, and Massa’s dirty air for his third.

You reference Canada 2010 as an example of a great race, and what made that race great was that tyre conservation was important, but so was driving fast and to the limit at points, overtaking and being aggressive. The latter are all lacking at the moment because of the over-inflated importance of the former.

I think @Jake is sort of onto something there. In Canada 2010 the tyres were marginal not in that they were shortlived; but in that the disparity between lifespans were somewhat large. Jenson wouldn’t have been able to do an option-option-prime race, but option-prime-prime provided too much tyre life. It created a situation where the best option for being able to complete the grand prix was a fixed strategy, but where everyone had to push flat-out.

I have to say, I feel the Perellis are verging on fragile for my liking! I enjoy the races now, however it is a shame to see drivers especially someone like Hamilton have to be soooo cautious on the tyres! However I would not want to get rid of the compounds however instead, give all teams say a ‘joker’ set of tyres for a certain amount of GP’s that are strong and durable, but much slower than the normal Pirellis, I say this because we would see drivers at full tilt, sometimes and it would also solve Pirellis problem with there advertisment of being a good tyre supplier!

@Jake
Ultimately, the teams would get use to those tyres, as a result causing more processional racing. Look at the latter half of 2011, and how many snooze-fests we had. Every race from Korea onwards was dull, even Interlagos was unable to deliver.

I like it this way. We have had 4 different races, and 4 different winners from different teams. Isn’t that what we want? We have exciting racing, competive field, and an exciting championship. How on earth some fans around here still aren’t satisfied is beyond me. Clearly, many people will always complain no matter what. Just sit back and enjoy; and if you still complain after the season we’ve had so far – than you’re clearly not a fan.

Yes. It has gone beyond the threshold of unpredictability into randomness. The signs are unnatural for motorsport. In Q3, there is now a “black hole” for places 8-10. Any surprise Q3 entrants prefer to save tyres rather than chance their arm at a higher grid position (which they would almost certainly lose anyway given the ease of passing in this iteration of F1). Also, there is the new “midfield pole” of 11th which gives a strategy advantage and fresh tyre advantage to those ahead. This undoubtedly helped propel Kimi from eleventh to second.

The most worrying is that drivers are losing their identity. This shows itself in many ways. The tyres are just the latest in a series of attempts to neutralise the disparity between driver talent (e.g. DRS). Aggressive driving is redundant because any time gained will be lost several times over due to excessive degradation/more boxes. Superior tyre management is null because the tyres are specced to die after 100km. Sustained pressure on an opponent is near impossible because they do not hold up well in traffic. Outrageous overtakes are more difficult because of the life you take out of the tyres as well as the fact that the tyres are churning out marbles the size of Chuck Norris’s testicles. The second overlooked aspect is how is a young driver supposed to distinguish himself? The number of one-and-done F1 drivers is rising (half-and-done if you drive for Toro Rosso). How are they supposed to make their name if they are mostly just a faceless drone overtaking/being overtaken generically? Kobayashi made his reputation in two races for Toyota by being super aggressive. If he débuted in today’s F1, he would blend in with the crowd. How many dormant Kobayashi’s are there on the grid today? We don’t know and the tyres obfuscate the truth from us.

I can’t believe this hasn’t been mentioned – the drivers are no longer physically pushed to the limit. I remember when the drivers used to rest their heads on the side of the cockpit because the race was so taxing. Nowadays, a driver completes a 100 minute race and hops out of the car looking untried and not fatigued in the slightest. Will we ever see again something near Ayrton Senna struggling to stand up after completing an exhausting Brazilian Grand Prix?

The biggest fault of the Pirelli tyres, in my opinion, is the fact that they kill sustained battles between two drivers. In 2010, I loved watching Button and Hamilton joust and jostle and try to outwit one another. Now it seems like I’m watching [Button vs. Pirelli] and [Hamilton vs. Pirelli] on the same piece of tarmac.

I have no problem with tyres being a limiting factor, but they are so limiting that is becoming impossible to distinguish drivers from one another. Who has the most overtakes this year? I don’t know. Who has been the most attacking driver so far? I don’t know. Most conservative with the tyres? Don’t know. Who are the latent talents most likely to break into the big teams in the future? Perhaps Checo, otherwise I don’t know.

A final observation. I don’t understand the logic of “falling off the cliff”. It’s arbritrary and so pointless. If a driver over uses a tire, he should be punished commensurately (0.5-1 sec) instead of having a race ruined by doing a lap or two too many.