F1 2013 Season

[smilodon]

I'm quite willing to believe that, as with most things BBC, the man with the microphone doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, but that's a pretty big edge sticking up

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[Snokio]

Well, as this is all going to happen in 2013, Hamilton :dummy: moving to Mercedes :frusty: (and proving me right that he moves for money, not championships:rolleyes:) and Perez moving to Mclaren, the focus now moves to Schumacher, and there are whispers he will run a final year at Ferrari replacing Massa :thumbup:, with Vettel moving to Ferrari the following year, others say there has been long talks with a move to Sauber. http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/f1/opinion/schumacher-to-sauber/

I suspect Di Resta may have been approached by Ferrari though

Interesting!

Well it seem this is the second time i have been wrong since 1867

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[TeaLeaf]

Pirelli's statement and findings with reference to the tyre failures at Silverstone are below.    

I find point 1 staggering that F1 teams can ignore something that even a road car driver would not let happen.  Putting tyres on the wrong way around!   There's a clear implication in the statement that this is precisely what they found during the forensic examination of the tyres post-Silverstone.

Points 2 & 3 are interesting too.   Red Bull is known to have long flouted the tyre pressure and in particular the camber angles employed on their car set up, so I wonder who the other culprits are?

1: Rear tyres that were mounted the wrong way round: in other words, the right hand tyre being placed where the left hand one should be and vice versa, on the cars that suffered failures. The tyres supplied this year have an asymmetric structure, which means that they are not designed to be interchangeable. The sidewalls are designed in such a way to deal with specific loads on the internal and external sides of the tyre. So swapping the tyres round has an effect on how they work in certain conditions. In particular, the external part is designed to cope with the very high loads that are generated while cornering at a circuit as demanding as Silverstone, with its rapid left-hand bends and some kerbs that are particularly aggressive.

2: The use of tyre pressures that were excessively low or in any case lower than those indicated by Pirelli. Under-inflating the tyres means that the tyre is subjected to more stressful working conditions.

3: The use of extreme camber angles.

4: Kerbing that was particularly aggressive on fast corners, such as that on turn four at Silverstone, which was the scene of most of the failures. Consequently it was the left-rear tyres that were affected.

The only problems that had come to light before Silverstone were to do with delamination, which was a completely different phenomenon. To stop these delaminations Pirelli found a solution by suggesting that the teams use the tyres that were tried out in Canada from Silverstone onwards. When this proposal was not accepted, Pirelli found another solution through laboratory testing, with a different bonding process to attach the tread to the carcass. So the problem of delamination has nothing at all to do with what was seen in Great Britain.

[suicidal_monkey]

Article on the BBC http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/23155008 states that pirelli were aware of the l/r swapping of the tyres, and the other "tweaks". Changing tyres is clearly necessary for safety - just hope it's not as unfair on any of the teams as feared.

At the end of the day there will be punctures whatever you do so the tyres should still be designed to remain attached to the wheel even after sudden deflation while doing 200mph.

[TeaLeaf]

Nice follow up article about the tyres with pictures here:
http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php
(and many many other articles on this on the web, DYOR)

Almost all of the F1 Teams use tyre swapping, lower tyre pressure or higher wheel camber settings outside the recommended parameters to gain a performance or control advantage (like tyre heat) whilst failing to appreciate the impact on their misuse on structural integrity of the tyre!   Pirelli knew this was happening, but under the FIA rules had no power to mandate teams only use them on the side for which the tyre was designed or to force them to run their recommended tyre pressures or camber settings.   Pirelli were not allowed to mandate what teams did, so when teams ignore the recommendations (like: this tyre is marked L, has a rotational direction arrow and is clearly for the LEFT of the car) they were powerless to do anything.    

The steel bands used in the construction of the 2013 tyres run diagonally across the tyre which means they *are* directional and will respond to loads differently depending on the side they are mounted, whereas the kevlar-belted 2012 tyres were not directional.   So some of the structural issues we have seen in the 2013 tyres are a consequence of the deliberate misuse of the tyre.    Putting a correctly used tyre over one of the nastier bits of F1 curbing (e.g. the inside of Turn 4 @ Silverstone) was therefore fine in 2012 and earlier years, but the changed construction of the 2013 tyres meant that when tyres were misused in 2013 it *was* an issue.    

From my reading around, all of the teams who suffered tyre problems at Silverstone (including the almost exploded tyre from Vettel's Red Bull) had been tyre swapping, running lower than the recommended minimum tyre pressure or using higher than the maximum recommended camber.

Using a tyre outside its design spec to gain a performance advantage is clearly not a Pirelli problem imo and I am beginning to feel more and more anger towards the teams for putting their drivers in a situation where they could be killed or seriously injured.

Question:

• A plane's wings fail structurally & snap off just after take-off and the plane crashes into the ground and all passengers are killed in the ensuing inferno.
• The accident investigation finds that the airline exceeded the aircraft manufacturer's maximum permissible take-off weight by some considerable way, thereby exceeding the maximum wing load design spec and this is what led to the wings failing and subsequent deaths.  
• The aircraft manufacturer has no way of ensuring that airlines do not overload the aircraft beyond the recommended maximum loadings.
• Who would you blame for the accident and loss of all souls?

[Tutonic]

Interesting points TL, I don't think blame lies solely with either party - both have cases to answer.

The most disturbing aspect of this is that obviously the tyre swapping ect was common knowledge. Why didn't Pirelli make a fuss? Surely they must have known that what the teams were doing was potentially dangerous? Were they told to hush it by the FIA?

I'm fairly sure that most of the blame actually points to the FIA (again). They knew that what the teams were doing was potentially unsafe, but did nothing.

[TeaLeaf]

I'm fairly sure that most of the blame actually points to the FIA (again). They knew that what the teams were doing was potentially unsafe, but did nothing.

+1.

FIA are amazingly controlling, so I doubt Pirelli had a chance in hell of changing the way the teams used the tyres without the FIA issuing an edict.

I'm still annoyed though that teams were deliberately misusing the tyres as commonly as they did.  It seems we are lucky not to have seen serious accidents before now.

[sulky_uk]

drivers threatening boycott over tyres

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/23190671

[Snokio]

I suspect Mercedes will be looking for a new main sponsor looking at how BlackBerry are struggling

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[T-Bag]

http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1/news/12433/8805358/

I seems Mclaren, who had two blowouts over the weekend were doing everything Pirelli asked. So I'm not sure it's as simple as blaming the teams for the problems.

[TeaLeaf]

I seems Mclaren, who had two blowouts over the weekend were doing everything Pirelli asked. So I'm not sure it's as simple as blaming the teams for the problems.

Reading what they said with a very suspicious mind, they admitted to ran the cars within recommended tyre pressures, they ran within recommended camber limits, but they did not say that they put the tyres on the correct side of the car.    There's lots of photographic evidence of Mclaren tyre swapping throughout the 2013 season, so I'm taking what they said with a large pinch of F1 salt.

I'd like to complain about our washing machine which failed spectacularly when used as a parachute - at no time did we overload the machine, we used the recommended soap powder and only ran the manufacturer-programmed cycles.  At all times we were within the recommended specification but our parachutist still died, albeit cleanly.

we've been swapping tyres since I started Formula One, so it's been done for many years

And here's a 2013 R tyre put on the Left of a McLaren: (picture from pitpass.com)


The FIA have today ruled that teams must comply with:

-minimum starting pressures and stabilised running pressures
-maximum cambers
-a banning of swapping tyres from side-to-side

[T-Bag]

If they were tyre swapping then it means their statement was an outright lie.

"All I can say is on behalf of McLaren and McLaren have run the correct specification on all of our tyres as they ran at Silverstone on the car including the tyres that had failures,"

Clearly Left<->Right swapping is not the specification. It might be the norm, but that would be a deliberately misworded response, which is a horrible thing to do.

[TeaLeaf]

Fantastic qualifying and race this past weekend with some great over-taking at a circuit which is not known for allowing over-taking.    Much respect to Hamilton for getting both pole and the win.    Much respect also to Kimi for managing 33 laps on a single set of mediums and holding off Vettel for the last 12 laps or so on those worn rubber rings!

Brilliant F1 weekend, just a darn shame it's a month until the next race now!

[T-Bag]

Fantastic qualifying and race this past weekend with some great over-taking at a circuit which is not known for allowing over-taking.    Much respect to Hamilton for getting both pole and the win.    Much respect also to Kimi for managing 33 laps on a single set of mediums and holding off Vettel for the last 12 laps or so on those worn rubber rings!

Brilliant F1 weekend, just a darn shame it's a month until the next race now!

Yes it was a fantastic race. The perfect blend of Strategy (Being called in for a pit stop at a point where Vettel would have been stuck behind RAI if he'd mirrored the stop) and racing (some excellent overtakes on Button and Webber). It's a shame Rosberg got such a poor start and being forced off the track by Massa seemed, to me at least, every bit as bad as the GRO incident which earned him a penalty.

Excellent driving from RAI and BUT. VET was predictably uninspiring when stuck in the pack. GRO was interesting to watch and I generally think the penalty was a little harsh. There have been incidents this season similar to both of his this race that weren't even investigated let alone penalised. I understand you have to be harsh on repeat offenders...but at least be consistent.

[Snokio]

hummm....respect to Luca Di Montezemolo, drivers need to sometimes reign in their frustrations, but possible move to redbull?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/23495111