The problem with the Pirellis
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First of all I’d like to say I think Pirelli have done a stand-up job and fully fulfilled their mandate. More pit-stops will always make a race more exciting than it is and I think they got the degradation rates bang on today.
But the problem is the mandate is flawed: make the tyres wear quicker because we want more Montreal races. It seems to have escaped FOTA’s notice that the reason Montreal was so exciting, apart from Lewis and Fernando being on equal pace and able to fight each other more often because of the extra stops, was because Red Bull started on a different compound which really mixed it up.
The “start on your qualifying tyre” needs to go. Only then will we see more mixes and Montreal-style races. Because for all the pit stops today, if there hadn’t been a blunder by McLaren and/or Hamilton’s issue the pecking order would have been very predictable. In Canada we didn’t know what was going on until Webber was caught in his penultimate stint.
The “start on your qualifying tyre” needs to go.
Regarding this rule, what happens if a driver qualifies in the top 10 and because of a punishment starts below 10th position? Does he use the tyres he used in Q3 or not? In a few words, is the rule applied to the 10 drivers in Q3 or to the first 10 drivers on the grid?
I was surprised some of the bottom end of the top ten – Petrov, Rosberg, Kobayashi – didn’t run on the hards to begin with to safe a set of softs for the end of the race.
I think the mandate should be closer to make the options super quick, make the primes really durable, an make sure the teams have enough tires come race day for things to get really varied.
The tyre rules need to be completley deregulated beyond that, quali tyre rule, both compound use rule, all kinda stupid variation killers. I reckon the teams should be able to select what tyres they want to bring to a race in advance, bring back strategy an the use of multiple compounds on one car!
The “start on your qualifying tyre” needs to go.
DO YOU HEAR THAT FIA?!?! WELL, DO YOU?!!!!!
Idiots. (not you Icthyes, the FIA).
I was surprised some of the bottom end of the top ten – Petrov, Rosberg, Kobayashi – didn’t run on the hards to begin with to safe a set of softs for the end of the race.
I had been thinking about that as well, but it seems like a defeatist strategy I think in that no matter how small the chance is, they have to use their fastest tyre to make sure they can profit if one of the normally faster teams make a mistake. They’d look really silly if they hadn’t and someone crashed out for example.
It must go. Simple as.
Anyway, I’m happy with the Pirellis. The only one thing I would do to make each compoud more noticable, would be to make semi circles between the PZERO and Pirelli text, that would make it stand out more and gove Brundle something less to moan about!
Oh, yes. I am really happy with the job Pirelli have done. As Calum says, the only thing they could do better is the distinction between the compounds. I like the idea someone on here offered to have the whole sidewall a distinct colour. It’d be like a reference to the whitewall tyres of old :)
You throw up an interesting point Scribe. I think the speed and durability of the tyres are still too close, I think I heard in practice that the softs would last for 11 laps and the hards 17 but the softs are about 1s faster. Pirelli should be looking more at a 2-second gap but double the life for the hards (which would make perfect sense as a pit-stop is 22s and up at most tracks).
@ Fixy – Good question! I could see them having to inherit their tyres from quali otherwise you would be potentially negating any penalty. Whaf about the guy who gets promoted though? He would rue having to use old tyres these days.
Pirellies are awful tires in my opinion, half way through the race you could see 80% of the track covered with marbles. Considering every driver is saving tires, that’s pretty bad. May be next year we’ll fuel car’s lighter too and see how far each driver car get?
If you want excitement, not that we need it but if you must do it artificially, make 3 stops mandatory and give drivers tires that can last 1000km. This sport if about going fast, not saving fuel/tires/engines and f*cking planet.
The sport is not about speed Ivan. It’s a product of decades of development.
And if anything Pirelli are doing a terrible job of being green. Gone are the days of burning an engine out over a race weekend and rightfully so.
I will not agree with that. Development is required to achieve speed, nothing else. Lately all teams do it sustain speed through any possible means that are not yet banned. I can understand reducing speed through safety measures but for excitement factor, F1 can do better.
I can agree with engine durability but because teams are in charge of this area of development, they can achieve durability without compromising performance. Tires on the other hand are limiting performance and are out of teams’ control.
The Tyre rules definately need to be changed. Definately scrap the start on quali Tyre rule. I’m not too happy about watching Hamilton and Alonso driving around trying to save tyres when they could be driving much quicker and more exciting.
If you want excitement, not that we need it but if you must do it artificially, make 3 stops mandatory and give drivers tires that can last 1000km
Trouble with this is you’ll just get clusters of drivers all covering each other’s pit stops. Hamilton will go in to get fresh rubber, then Vettel will have to cover him.. Alonso will follow.
Whoever has the fastest pitstop be get the advantage and if someone can stay out longer he will be on worse tyres and thus slower… it’s not on track passing. We’ve been there before.
I fully agree the rule needs to go but I don’t think it would change the strategies that much. The soft tyres were over a second quicker this weekend compared to the hards, and when all the cars are closely bunched at the start you don’t want to be losing track position just for the sake of strategy. If the compounds had a narrower performance differential then ok…
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