How can McLaren get away with this??
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http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/90313
Just read that McLaren’s test and reserve driver Pedro De La Rosa is allowed to do another Pirelli tyre test. I thought the agreement was that no one team was going to gain an advantage by getting more data on the tyres.
This I am sure will give McLaren an un-fair advantage over the other teams.
People are being surprisingly tolerant of this decision.
If this was Ferrari, right now they would be getting accused of being a bunch of no good sneaky cheaters.
On the one hand I understand your point, but having read the article, and given that ‘people are being surprisingly tolerant of this decision’ I would say it is fairly harmless, and has more to do with Pirelli ensuring that they do not pull a ‘Michelin/US GP’ fiasco where the tires wouldn’t hold up and were deemed dangerous and advised the teams using said tires not to race that weekend, and they didn’t…they want to make sure a newer harder compound tire will hold up structurally for turns 8 and 9 at Istanbul…so it’s far more about all the driver’s safety, and about ensuring the teams will have proper tires for Turkey and be able to race, than it is about giving Mac an advantage.
Chances are that by that race the Mac and many other cars will have changed in some ways and these new harder tires meant to withstand the rigours of turns 8 and 9 in Turkey will be truly new for everybody, and PdlR’s input about them for Mac will be minimal…again…it is about everybody’s safety, not about giving Mac an advantage intentionally…
Now if MS were still at Ferrari with everything under the sun skewed toward MS including the FIA’s own will to see him ‘succeed’ and it was a Ferrari driver testing the tires, then you are right I would have big suspiscions…but the MS/Ferrari era was unique to itself, never done before, never will happen again, and so even if it were a Ferrari reserve driver trying out these new Pirelli’s I would not have an issue going by how Ferrari operates today vs. then…
For a start, McLaren won’t gain too much of an advantage from this, the other teams have had wide ranging access to the tyres. As well as that, McLaren an the other teams are bound by years exclusive to this year to a strict weight balance, so there’s not much De La Rosa will be able to give McLaren that they don’t know already.
Beyond that, if Pirelli are bringing new tyres specifically for the race, McLaren won’t be able to do much in the way of single race optimisation for the race on the advice of a driver whose never driven their car, regardless of the fact that the tyres De La Rosa drives will likley be quite different to the final product Pirelli brings to the race.
@Robbie thanks for your reply.
If that was the case they could just take the old Toyota to Turkey or any other place where the circuits are hard on tyres and tested them their. I am sure that Mclaren will gather some extra data from this do you really think that they will let Pedro stay quiet???
Hmmm…not so sure an old Toyota would give Pirelli the data they need…they probably need to have them (the new tires) on a current car. I think they are particularly worried about Turkey because of it’s turns 8 and 9 so any other place where the circuit is hard on tires might not be relevant to what they are directly concerned with. Again, I get the impression they are harkening back to the fiasco at the US GP where it was one corner in particluar that was of issue, and Pirelli are not wanting to repeat that…if there still was a US GP perhaps the test would have taken place there. Michelin didn’t test there and look what happened. The Michelins were only ever insufficient at one corner of one track all year and we all saw the result when that caught everybody including Michelin by surprise and they had to make a very tough mid-weekend decision to admit they failed to bring sufficient tires and that they could only advise their teams to not race. Gut wrenching for them. Embarassing. Costly too…
And of course I don’t expect Pedro to stay quiet but again, this is about driver safety and ensuring they can race in Turkey safely. It will be Pirelli that carries the data, not PdlR…he will be able to give impressions of how the car behaved, but he will not necessarily be told the exact compounds he is driving on, the exact air pressures etc etc…they probably don’t want him to know anyway, because they would want unbiased opinions each time they send him out on the track…’ok Pedro, tells us how those felt…ok, now go out on these ones and tells us how these are’…all the while looking at the telemetry, stuff like that…they don’t have to share rubber recipes with him, nor tell him the loading data etc…
And who’s to say Pirelli, who are the one’s who will actually have the data, not Mac or PdlR, will not share their findings with all the teams…in fact, I think that is the whole point…Pirelli does not want to risk lawsuits and fines if they do not provided sufficient tires for the extreme loadings that turn 8 and 9 in Turkey provide, so they will want all the teams reassured that they will have safe compounds for that race, and “by the way, here’s our data that shows it”…that’s probably why you are hearing little protest to this…
I’m also quite sure the FIA should be backing them on this test, because they and FOM do not want another US GP 6-car race on their hands either…everyone is on Pirelli’s so there wouldn’t even be a 6-car race…somebody has to do this test in some current car, so if it weren’t Mac it would be another team and the suspicion, if there is any other than with armchair fans, would still exist…
Pirelli have used numerous drivers, and other teams have also hired said drivers.
All the teams get exactly the same copies of the data, so while a driver’s input is very useful, it’s primarily useful in understanding not how the tyre works, but how the tyre works on the car you’re driving.
So while PdlR will get a lot of useful “feel” for the tyres, it’s a feel for how they behave on an out of spec modified Toyota chassis. Not the 2011 McLaren.
This is not at all like Ferrari’s famous “filming days” where they’re not supposed to test new parts, but do it anyway.
“This is not at all like Ferrari’s famous “filming days” where they’re not supposed to test new parts, but do it anyway. ”
Anyone can do a PR filming day Ferrari just choose to use it but everyone has the option.
Back to the topic, I don’t think it’ll help Mclaren much but if it isn’t breaking the rules then every little helps.
“If this was Ferrari, right now they would be getting accused of being a bunch of no good sneaky cheaters”
I suspect you’re right there…
Can’t really see how this could give McLaren an advantage. Unless De La Rosa is in the car for a race it MIGHT benefit him SLIGHTLY…but that’s not going to happen.
Pirelli still need someone for development and they won’t be keen on having another test driver.
Somehow, I don’t think Marc Gene in a 2009 Toyota would provoke that much rage. And if it did, they’d (conspiracy theorists) be put in their place immediately.
This I am sure will give McLaren an un-fair advantage over the other teams.
McLaren have the single most advanced race simulator on the entire grid. They can input any variables and get incredibly detailed feedback from it. Odds are they already know exactly how those tyres will behave in Turkey.
Secondly, Pirelli have agreed to a policy of total transparency with the teams. Anything they find will be passed on to everyone else to prevent one team from gaining an advantage.
And if you read the article, the purpose of the test is not to examine the grip produced by the tyre, but to ensure the structure of the tyre is strong enough to withstand the nuances of the Istanbul Park circuit. Pedro de la Rosa will be using the existing tyres, and McLaren already know pretty much everything there is to know about them.
But most importantly, they would not have been able to give permission for de la Rosa to do the test without the unanimous approval of the other teams.
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