Pirelli 2013 F1 tyre range

Pirelli 2013 F1 tyre range

Certainly a WIDE range now isn't it?

If Bernie didn't already have Pirelli by the balls with an FOM contract I don't see any reason why they would want to put up with this nonsense again next year.

It's the NEXT tire supplier that is in the pound seats, as they'll no doubt be viewed as a savior. Until the teams/fans grow tired of them that is...
 
Spain's Marca.com sports newspaper are saying in plain language Pirelli are lying because they secretly added Kevlar to the belts in the tyres used at Silverstone. They state Mercedes and Sauber engineers discovered Kevlar belts among the shards of exploded tyres they recovered from the circuit. This report isn't getting much traction yet in the English-speaking press but, it true, this could get real ugly, real fast.

Retired German tennis star Boris Becker might have driven the final nail in Pirelli's coffin when he twittered, "Thank god Pirrelli don't make condoms." Such a clever turn of phrase will be very difficult to shake.
 
I mentioned this before as well. Anthony Davidson on the "SkyPad" showed that their has undoubtedly been changes made to the "Steel Belted" construction. The delaminations have changed greatly in characteristic and ferocity.

Sky showed video of all the delaminations/punctures/blowouts that have occurred this year, and the recent ones look nothing like the original ones.
 
Could the tyres have had a multi-belt construction all season? I'm sure I have seen on road tyres listing various ply for both the sidewall and the tread?

On my SD tv I would have said any strands were more fibrous, Though the flying debris look very metallic when Vergnes tyre went and the wheel looked fine, not sure how much other metalwork is in the area.
 
I don't believe the extreme cambers bit, The cars looked pretty normal to me with lots of camber on the fronts and very little on the rears - which were the tyres that had the catastrophic failures. But, hey I'm just being a bit pedantic.:)
 
There's a great shot here showing the deformation of the tyres on Pérez' car as it goes through Becketts.

S.Perez_Britain'13_122i_27.jpg


From the excellent Darren Heath site: http://www.darrenheath.com/season/2013/great-britain-2013/image-gallery
 
Pirelli, thanks in the main to the ban on testing, clearly has no idea what the operational range of the tyres it is supplying to F1 are. That to my mind is a bloody dangerous situation to be in.

They are only imposing limits on pressure, camber and use now that there has been a problem. Tyre testing has to take place in order to ensure that these tyres can withstand all reasonable operating conditions within which they can be used. This should lead to a clear instruction to the teams on what they can and can't do with the tyres before they are issued.

On reading that statement, you wonder if Pirelli will still be there next season and if not, then which tyre maker would want the, now thankless task, of coming in and doing a better job? Avon Rubber anyone ??
 
As I understand it, Pirelli issue guidance on minimum pressures and maximum cambers every race.
The teams don't have to follow this advice and I believe Red Bull had problems in the past due to running cambers which were too extreme.

Of course, if they are using the tyres for something which they weren't designed, such as swapping sides, then the teams only have themselves to blame.
 
Those tyres certainly look short of a pound or two of pressure. I can't help but feel Pirelli are being pilloried for things beyond their control. On the testing thing, surely the ability to use a 2 year old car should allow them to test some of the extremes of tyre performance?
 
So Pirelli blame the teams for using the tyres on the wrong wheels and at the wrong pressure and for using 'extreme' camber (on the rear wheels?), the circuits for having kerbs that are too high, inconveniently getting in the way of the tyres and causing cuts in a way and to an extent that has never happened before.

But nevertheless they take the unilateral decision, before having undertaken any of the tests that have now been made possible for them, to drastically change the construction of the tyres for the second half of the season.

Hmmm.
 
A move that they have proposed before, when there was criticism about the durability of the compounds.

Pirelli have been on the receiving end of so much flack that I am amazed there is still a high likelihood that they will continue next season.

These tyres have been in place all season. Why have these type of failures only come to light in Silverstone, rather than Canada, Bahrain, China, Malaysia?

I am not saying that Pirelli are blameless, however, the levels of criticism that they are receiving from some quarters it is as if they are solely responsible for all the ills in the sport, and there is no way anything else could have contributed to the problems.
 
an interesting piece:

http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1...to-their-rear-tyres-for-this-week-s-German-GP

Specifically:

'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.'

So, a perfect storm. It would be interesting to see which teams reversed tyres, and which did not.
 
The wall of the tyre stays as outside or inside, as the tyre cannot be switched round on the rim. How the ply is constructed would be directional. I don't know what impact this would have, in terms of the energies going through thetyre, and the tyres ability to deal with it.
 
I'm not sure how switching the tyres would be that different in these cases - as you say the inside wall is still the inside wall - its just rotating clockwise instead of anti-clockwise and vice versa. I can see how that could make a difference where we've seen de-laminations but not sure it would make a difference to the kind of cuts occurring at the weekend. Under pressured tyres certainly would, as proved by Newey's immediate reaction to increase tyre pressures.

It seems the teams definitely need to take a good chunk of the responsibility for going so extreme with their setups. Of course the reason for going as extreme as they have is because of the tyres which is because of FOMs/FIAs ridiculous desires for a shit tyre. Where ever the responsibility lies - teams, pirelli or silverstone kerbs, the blame should lie squarely at the FOM/FIA.
 
Back
Top Bottom