Motorsport Off Topic Thread

What's the point in having a 5th compound if there just going to chose the safe middle ground each race. I wonder if this is even more conservative than last year?

Lol, yep it is! Australia, China and Bahrain were all Medium/Soft last year, but Russia was Soft/Super Soft. They have gone conservative at Russia again, so that will be a 1 stop race then...

Well done FIA/Pirelli... "insert slow, patronising clap*
 
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Pirelli are playing it safe. They've had plenty of bad publicity before and will always err on the side of caution. Besides no one wants to see a tyre that lasts six laps in the race do they?
 
MissChief said:
Pirelli are playing it safe. They've had plenty of bad publicity before and will always err on the side of caution. Besides no one wants to see a tyre that lasts six laps in the race do they?
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Why not, it could be good for the spectators and makes the race more of a team game, relying a little more on what happens at the pit stops. ;)

Random draw pre-season for each venue, stating a specific lap window when a car must pit for the super compound (driver/team is free to choose how long they use the super compound for, but perhaps with a minimum number of laps ruling)
If wet weather prevents their use at the pre-determined time, a car must pit for the super compound within "x" number of laps of Charlie stating wets/intermediates do not have to be used on safety grounds
 
Although the tyre compounds are the same/harder than last year, I thought Pirelli are designing the tyres so they drop off the cliff faster like they did in 2012?
 
Kris_90 said:
Although the tyre compounds are the same/harder than last year, I thought Pirelli are designing the tyres so they drop off the cliff faster like they did in 2012?
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Pirelli couldn't make a good tire for the life of them.
They've already admitted\told teams that 2017 tires will slow down the car by 2 seconds a lap.
As the tire can't take it and the only way round it is to increase the air pressure.
So the "5 seconds faster" has gone out the window. Bring back Bridgestone.
 
deuse said:
Pirelli couldn't make a good tire for the life of them.
They've already admitted\told teams that 2017 tires will slow down the car by 2 seconds a lap.
As the tire can't take it and the only way round it is to increase the air pressure.
So the "5 seconds faster" has gone out the window. Bring back Bridgestone.
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Pirelli are perfectly capable of building tyres to withstand the loads. What they said is they won't build tyres which won't incurring a penalty which will cancel out some of the gains the 2017 rules would introduce. If there was a tyre war they would be less inclined to build tyres which required much higher pressure - they'd go at it as they have done in the past.

The problem is we're in a control tyre situation and Pirelli won't tolerate another Silverstone 2013. If it was Pirelli vs Michelin on track I'm sure Pirelli would shed some of their concerns and start pushing the margins much as Michelin and Bridgestone did in their head-to-heads era.

The other problem, the bigger problem, is that the teams and FIA have been unable to come up with an agreement to allow Pirelli to test the tyres before the 2017 pre-season testing starts, so they'd be guessing on tyre design, so they'd have to play it safe for 2017 as things stand. It would be utterly ludicrous to do anything else.

It's not as simple as "here is the maximum load, build these". Every car (and even driver) uses the tyres differently and there are all sorts of factors to consider. Weight distribution, camber, lateral load, twisting load, torque, differential, rotational speed (as in top speed of the car) and so on. Without having a car to test with they can't begin to understand how any of these different forces will play out in 2017, so as things stand they'd have to build super-safe tyres. It wouldn't be any different if Michelin, Bridgestone, Dunlop or Avon were designing the tyres.

This is likely them putting pressure on the FIA and teams to come up with a solution to allow them to test a car which is likely to indicate what 2017 will bring.

And Bridgestone don't want to come back, so good luck persuading them otherwise.
 
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Giant 'who cares?'.

Either it will come back, not make a blind bit of difference to the sport and all will be ****. Or it'll come back, somehow make it even more boring and all will be ****. Or the rule change won't happen anyway.....and all will be ****.

:)
 
timmeh said:
I thought refuelling was already confirmed as coming back?
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Nope. It was suggested by the strategy group for 2017. The teams, and everyone with a brain said it was stupid so they decided not to. Then they spent 3 months not deciding on any 2017 rules, and now they are meeting up again next week to discus things, like a return of to refueling, and a cap on the price of engines...

Deja vu, anyone?

Isn't repeating the same action yet expecting a different outcome the definition of insanity?

JRS said:
Giant 'who cares?'.

Either it will come back, not make a blind bit of difference to the sport and all will be ****. Or it'll come back, somehow make it even more boring and all will be ****. Or the rule change won't happen anyway.....and all will be ****.

:)
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It will be the latter. The teams (manufacturers) were given until the 15th Jan (today) to come up with way of controlling costs, improving the show and ensuring a more level playing field in terms of engines. Guess what, they haven't done anything... Shock.
 
Only realised that Autosport show was on due to the amount of soundbites they'd given on their site from Pat 'Integrity' Symonds.
 
As unwelcome as his presencce in F1 is, his concerns about what the 2017 regulations (well, looks like 2018 now, if at all) are becoming make rather worrying reading.

The cars will be the same body width as now, with the same bodywork as now, the same wings as now, and the same floor as now...
 
Duke said:
Delaying it a year seems sensible.
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Its not likely to be delayed because its a sensible idea, it will be delayed because nobody can agree on anything.

This conversation started almost a year ago remember, and so far they have agreed on literally nothing, other than reaching agreement on the fact they all don't agree.

The engine manufacturers were given a deadline of last Friday to provide a plan for how to control engine costs. They simply didn't bother, and the FIA have let them get away with it.
 
Popped up in my twitter feed the other day - I love this:

161bzo7.png


:D
 
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