The F1 2015 season

[englishpremier]

Any tyre that can heat from ambient to 100c quick enough to not be a right pain for laps is also going to be worn out within minutes.

Why would the new tyres with a new construction and compound need to operate at 100c to provide their best grip?

Again you're judging them on todays requirements.

Unless a tyre manufacturer comments on the situation I guess we just have to wait and see.

 

[Skeeter]

To provide the same grip at a lower temperature the tyres would have to be softer, surely?

Just look at any race series with short sprints, like drag racing or hill climbing. You can push your finger into the single seater hillclimb tyres because, short of a couple of breif burnouts, they need to provide maximum grip possible from cold. On an F1 car those tyres wouldn't last a lap.

F1 tyres sustain their temperature due to the forces applied to them. Unless you drastically cut G forces and cornering speeds those forces won't reduce, and any tyre will still get that hot.

Unless there is some secret technology that nobody has released, a tyre that heats up quickly will be softer and last less time than one that heats up slowly. F1 negates this with tyre warmers. Removing tyre warmers will increase net time lost through a pit stop, making people even less likely to want to make any more stops than the minimum possible. Ergo, "save tyres".

I don't buy the cost saving argument, it a tiny amount in the grand scheme. The safety moans are also pretty weak. My concern is making a pit stop lose 45 - 60 seconds is going to kill the racing even more. Hence why I want them to stay.

 

[bru]

I can see teams keeping their tyres in a really nice warm room out the back right up until they are needed.

 

[this_is_gav]

My concern is making a pit stop lose 45 - 60 seconds is going to kill the racing even more. Hence why I want them to stay.

I still don't buy it. Even taking into account the rock-hard tyres Bridgestone supplied, you had instances of drivers sitting stationary for minutes at a time and once they got going, they didn't have to creep around losing 30 seconds getting back up to speed. Hamilton was sat for 4-5 minutes at the Nurburgring, and even on the wrong tyres he got going at a decent enough speed (a similar speed to others catching the safety car).

Even now, multiple teams are sending drivers off to the end of the pit-lane on slicks, letting the tyres lose all of their heat before they begin the warm-up lap for qualifying.

It's all irrelevant in my opinion anyway, as I think the standard has been set - if a driver can't quickly overtake, the team will ask him to drop back, as irrespective of how hard the tyres are, you will lose a degree of performance following another car. The only way to avoid that one is to provide hard enough tyres to go an entire race, forcing drivers to overtake on track, and I for one don't want to see those introduced.

 

[Skeeter]

We have never seen a car dropped into a racing environment on stone cold tyres during the tyre warmer era. All your examples include warm up laps or SC periods.

It is all a bit of an unknown, and 45 seconds could be a massive exaggeration. But its certainly not going to make the stops any quicker, is it?

If it doesn't save money, I just don't see the point?

 

[this_is_gav]

Because, as I say, it adds another element to testing a driver's skill. Which is good.

In America they've raced on cold slicks for years with forces higher than an F1 car generates on some tracks (I don't follow Indy anymore, but I can't imagine it's changed).

 

[Skeeter]

Depends what skills you think will be tested. If its how well they can drive at 80% and hit predefined delta times then your probably right.

Banning tyre warmers will do nothing but make racing worse in a tyre limited formula.

 

[englishpremier]

If it's a bad as skeeter says it is and cars are going to be running round some 30s slower after putting cold tyres on, the drivers with bigger dangly bits will take more risk and push harder and make up masses of time or be in the wall. Either way that'll be exciting to watch.

Just like in times gone by when F1 actually to used to race in proper wet weather.

 

[Skeeter]

Why take the risk? Your never going to make up enough time to cover an extra stop.

 

[englishpremier]

Why did/do people do it in wet GPs? Who said anything about making up a pit stop anyway?

The rules dictate you have to stop so it's the same for everyone.

The truth is none of us know how it will work so there is no point trying to pick it to pieces, or sing its praises.

 

[Skeeter]

The rules state you have to stop once. Any more stops are because the tyres won't last.

The making up the lost time from a stop is key. Imagine a 60 lap race and a pit stop takes 30 seconds. If you 2 stop and your competitor 1 stops then you need to make that extra 30 seconds back some how. To do that you would need to average 0.5 seconds a lap faster than your competitor for the whole race.

Now imagine without tyre warmers that's a 45 loss in the pit stop. You now need to be 0.75 seconds a lap faster than your competitor, but in the same scenario.

Now imagine pit lanes had no speed limit and were shorter. A pit stop costs 6 seconds. You now only need to be 0.1 seconds faster per lap than your competitor.

Which of the above would promote a mixture of strategies best? And which would push drivers and teams to make the least amount of stops possible?

Its bad enough now. We don't see people going balls to the wall flat out and taking extra stops, because they can't make up the time lost. It's all about eeking out the tyres to last as long as possible and make the fewest stops possible. Increasing the time you lose in a stop will only make this worse.

Without refueling, the only way to improve it is to make the stops less of a loss, not more, or to remove the tyre limit completely (I.e. mandate 3 stops with tyres that will easily do a stint flat out). With the rules as they are and as they are proposed we will just see focus remain on extending tyre life and not on driving flat out.

 

[englishpremier]

there is too much imagine this and imagine that. Imagine all cars stop one, see what happens then.

It's best just to wait and see as this is going round and around and around.

Pirelli will be making the tyres in 2015, they'll know infinitely more than us about it.

 

[MooMoo444]

Not sure the tyre blanket thing is good, I mean we're used to seeing people pitting, coming out and putting in amazing laps on fresh boots to do the undercut. It wont be possible (or less possible) to do that on cold tyres perhaps.

 

[this_is_gav]

Not sure the tyre blanket thing is good, I mean we're used to seeing people pitting, coming out and putting in amazing laps on fresh boots to do the undercut. It wont be possible (or less possible) to do that on cold tyres perhaps.

It's not going to take them 3 laps to warm up. In qualifying, drivers sit at the end of the pit lane for minutes sometimes, coast around and still banzai the first lap. I don't think it's a problem with these tyres, and I can't see it being a problem with tyres designed especially for it.

To my eyes, you'll lose about 5 seconds, it gives another variable in strategy, and tests drivers skill a bit more.

 

[Skeeter]

...it gives another variable in strategy...

This is my point, anything that makes pit stops longer doesn't add strategy options, it restricts them. The longer stops take, the less stops teams want to make, so the more pushed towards minimum possible stops they all are.

 

[Skeeter]

So, given most cars have been launched for this year and the visuals range from 'ming' to 'MY EYES!', who else thinks the FIA will impose a new minimum nose tip width for 2015 that will be considerably wider?

 

[this_is_gav]

This is my point, anything that makes pit stops longer doesn't add strategy options, it restricts them. The longer stops take, the less stops teams want to make, so the more pushed towards minimum possible stops they all are.

I'd say if it gives teams a conundrum between staying out on shot tyres or potentially wasted time fitting new tyres, it's bound to lead to the odd charge through the field by the few guys who did roll the dice.

There's nothing more boring than identical strategies, so if you've got another variable, I struggle to see that being a poor thing.

We've only had a few instances of that recently - Mercedes and Webber at Singapore stands out as the best example. It should have happened more often.

If it means teams have to push the envelope of degrading tyres a bit further than they'd want, bring it on.