Bahrain Grand Prix 2012, Sakhir - Race 4/20

It seems to be random based on the conditions during the 2 hour window of the race. Stupid tyres.

This does seem to be the case.
Its almost as if every track, suits a different car (excluding Malaysia).

What we can say for certain is that the McLaren boys and Vettel are in with a chance for this year's title, so it should be a close battle.
 
I agree. I do enjoy the more strategic environment that these particular current crop of tyres offer but it would be nice to see who can go hell to leather for a good few laps before they start to degrade. Getting that kind of compound right would take some doing though?

Very easy I would have thought. On motorbikes they can have dual compound tyres, i.e. if there are significantly more right hand corners the bikes will have a softer left side as that side of the tyre will heat up less and have less grip if the whole tyre was one compound and result in more crashes.

I don't see why they couldn't have a top layer that was very strong but obviously did wear out, revealing the type of tyre they have now.

I'm no tyre expert but I do know if they can engineer a tyre that fades away quickly like this one, they can make a tryre that doesn't.
 
Another aspect of these shoddy tyres is when Di Resta is being caught by a faster car and instead of putting up a fight he simply lets them through because heaven forbid defending his position will do more damage to his tyres.
 
Another aspect of these shoddy tyres is when Di Resta is being caught by a faster car and instead of putting up a fight he simply lets them through because heaven forbid defending his position will do more damage to his tyres.

bernie doesnt want anyone defending so i guess the tyres are great for him and his plans to finally break into the america market because he sees all the $$$$ nascar makes.

and americans aparently have the attention span of a gold fish so unless theres massive points or overtaking every 5 seconds a sport cant hold their interest
 
Another aspect of these shoddy tyres is when Di Resta is being caught by a faster car and instead of putting up a fight he simply lets them through because heaven forbid defending his position will do more damage to his tyres.

well to be fair given Force India's relatively low score before the last race, getting 6th place is still a big deal for them (especially compared to where they thought they were)

the midfield is going to be super tight , and the cliff occurs with no warning (ie you can be a second off in lap time, and then suddenly its 5s off)

Dont think you can really blame him, it could easily have been a strategy call from the team rather than something he chose to do

This does seem to be the case.
Its almost as if every track, suits a different car (excluding Malaysia).

What we can say for certain is that the McLaren boys and Vettel are in with a chance for this year's title, so it should be a close battle.

I havent watched the race at all, and didnt really get a decent impression from the radio commentary - but do you think (without the dodgy pitstops) LH had the speed in any of the stints to compete with Vettel / Kimi?
 
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I'd say he didn't have the car to play with Lotus never mind Kimi, I think 3rd would have been his at the most after a fight with Grosjean but more than likely 4th after pit stops.
 
Jeese guys, make your mind up. Last year you were all complaining that it was boring because the same guy kept winning it and one team had a dominating car. So far this year we have had 4 different winners in 4 different cars and 4 different championship leaders, yet your still complaining :confused:. China was arguably the best race for years, but now after a couple of comments about the tyres from some drivers this season is aparently being 'ruined by stupid tyres'.

All I'm seeing is an F1 season I am thoroughly enjoying watching.
 
I'd say he didn't have the car to play with Lotus never mind Kimi, I think 3rd would have been his at the most after a fight with Grosjean but more than likely 4th after pit stops.

I'm not so sure on that, because I think Lewis compared to the front runners may have simply had the worse set of tyres of him Vettel and the Lotus's, so a good pit and second/third stint we really won't know as both Lewis and Button were held up consistently throughout the race. Clearer air, better tyres, its really impossible to tell.

I can't remember precisely but I thought Hamilton went q2 softs then q3 first run was the same set, then he didn't do a time on the second fresh set. I think but am definitely not sure that Vettel did his fastest quali time on a fresh set of softs, Kimi had the freshest tyres(but the furthest to make up) and Grosjean did a pretty slow, easy time just to get a couple cars further up the grid so essentially fresher(pushed less hard) than Vettel.

Hamilton therefore might have actually had half decent race pace on awful tyres and could he have been faster with "real" tyres, impossible to know, all we do know is tyres make a huge difference. At this stage quali is going to become very dull very quickly, with people realising 2nd/3rd and no risk of locking up or over pushing the tyres on your fastest lap is the only way to go, and everyone will use one set of tyres.
 
Jeese guys, make your mind up. Last year you were all complaining that it was boring because the same guy kept winning it and one team had a dominating car. So far this year we have had 4 different winners in 4 different cars and 4 different championship leaders, yet your still complaining :confused:. China was arguably the best race for years, but now after a couple of comments about the tyres from some drivers this season is aparently being 'ruined by stupid tyres'.

All I'm seeing is an F1 season I am thoroughly enjoying watching.

At the end of the day last season was **** as well, I'd prefer to have one car so good that it wins, starts at the front, goes off on its own, who cares, but have at least 5-6 cars that genuinely race each other.

A different winner each race is nothing, I literally don't care who wins, the race is the race, the result is the result. THe racing.... is god awful, it wasn't very good last year.

I'll take interesting championship and god awful race over boring championship and god awful race.

I'd take boring championship and great racing over either, in a heart beat.

I remember races, I don't remember who got what points and who was where in the title. I don't remember a great champion from 1987, I remember a fantastic France race(okay, I don't actually remember when it was, i think it was 87 :p ). The entertainment is the 2 hour race, the title and the result is 4 seconds at the end that ultimately doesn't make a race itself good or bad.

I think one of the reasons the racing was so awful in the past couple years is the blown diffuser and engine mapping issues, people were WAY to good in corners, and ultimately the difference between a great and awful driver was never going down a long boring straight, but in the braking and balls to put the foot down in the corner, that was where time was gained, or lost and races won or lost. Corners set up overtakes on the straights. This year corners are a hugely more useful tool for overtaking, but tyres have made it pointless because you can risk a move, lock your tyres and ruin your stint completely. I think we had far more daring corner passes in the first few races and these are already scaling back massively as people realise tyres, not particularly track position are whats important.

If we had decent tyres that one lock up didn't ruin a race on.... we'd have people flinging themselves into corners to overtake, people burning rubber to catch the guy in front.

Right now someone can be 5 seconds from the guy infront and 20 seconds ahead of the guy behind, but burning rubber to catch the guy in front is more likely to hurt your tyres and push your race into that guy 20 seconds behind....... that is a truly awful state for the "racing" to be in. You're better off maintaining 5 seconds from the guy in front than close, hurt your tyres and find at some stage that tyre wear puts you closer to the guy behind than the guy in front.
 
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...
All I'm seeing is an F1 season I am thoroughly enjoying watching.

Indeed it's been an absolutely cracking start to the season so far, especially after last season.

Last race it was Bahrain and Vettel won yet I thoroughly enjoyed the race... who'd of thought it :p

Watch the fickle fans jump from one bandwagon to the next ;)

ps3ud0 :cool:

Whatever helps people to pass the 3 week gap :D
 
I think they should just stop the tyres falling off a cliff and make it more of a gradual reduction over time.

That will make no difference (and has already happened. "Zee Cleeeif!" of early 2011 has gone). As long as the limit for pit stops and therefore new tyres is dependant on the life of the tyre, tyre management will always be a high priority.

The only way to remove any reliance on tyre life is to put in something else that means the driver gets a chance to change tyres well before they are near the end of their life. I.e. refuelling.

I think people are getting a bit confused on what F1 is about though. It has never been a flat out sprint. Tyre management and/or fuel management have been a part of the races for decades. F1 races are between 90 minutes and 2 hours, which is almost double the 1 hour races used in many 'endurance' series.

I do agree the tyre rules are not perfect. But I don't think the simplistic ideals of 'just make them last longer' will solve the issue, and I definitely don't think this season is being 'ruined by stupid tyres'.
 
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I think they should just stop the tyres falling off a cliff and make it more of a gradual reduction over time.

I agree with this and if Kimi had some long lasting tires and kept pushing vettel would have ran out of fuel.
 
I think people are getting a bit confused on what F1 is about though. It has never been a flat out sprint
it was always a flat out sprint during the refueling era because you never new what stratergy someone else was on so you couldnt afford to pace yourself incase you got caugh out.

if pirreli really wanted to they could make some tyres that are grippy ,and last about 20 laps but dont suffer from overheating.

the main problem with these tyres is they rubber is some crappy compound that just falls apart if it gets to hot, its obvious the tyres are far to brittle, its the kind of cheap crappy chinese cheese rubber you get on china knock off RC tyres
 
if pirreli really wanted to they could make some tyres that are grippy ,and last about 20 laps but dont suffer from overheating.

the main problem with these tyres is they rubber is some crappy compound that just falls apart if it gets to hot, its obvious the tyres are far to brittle, its the kind of cheap crappy chinese cheese rubber you get on china knock off RC tyres

Genuinely just fell off my chair laughing.

Since when did you become a tyre engineer? I like how Mercedes (or specifically Schumacher) have got issues with the tyres and suddenly you think they are the worst thing to ever happen to the sport!

The only reason we have tyres that wear out is because after Canada 2010 and everyone loved the fact the tyres ran out, the FIA asked Pirelli to make tyres that did that. Make your minds up people!
 
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