F1 Fanatic

In episode 68 of The Flying Lap, Peter Windsor asked Paul Hembery if he knew anything more about Vettel’s first-corner tyre failure that led him to retire from the Grand Prix.

Hembery answered that he couldn’t deviate from their original statement, but that people should look at Jenson Button’s onboard footage from the start and draw their own conclusions. Can anyone with access to that footage please find out what he means?

There was quite some smoke coming out on that part, that’s what I saw. I guess they were running things on the very edge for the whole season, and they just stepped over it there, in those circumstances.

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Thanks @damonsmedley. I have to admit it’s difficult for me to see much in detail. Puffs of white smoke, though, isn’t that the sort of thing conspiracy theories are made of? ;-)

I don’t know why people are so blind about this. It’s obvious that Lewis shot Vettel’s tyre with a titanium dart off the start. :P

/end sarcasm

I have another theory! What if this was a technical glitch — and it was only actually meant to fire the exhaust onto the tyres when he was doing the formation lap — but on this occasion it kept going as he waited on the grid. If this was the case, it would only be heating a single patch of the tyre, which would surely melt a hole in it or at least damage it pretty badly.

If the video is blown up to full screen, you can see two tiny flashes down by the diffuser. First on the left and then just before take off, on the right. Is this what we are talking about here. I would have thought it might have been a more constant and even flow of “warming” gasses as the wheel is turning for even distribution of heat, not a pinpoint explosion or the like.

hmmm… curiouser and curiouser…