Pirelli 2013 F1 tyre range

Chad Stewarthill......Hi Chad, I agree that the tyre situation has become way too extreme though in saying that I do believe if we're all patient they will find the right balance. I think the coming GP's will make us all happier. There will always be areas we criticize, for me it's DRS. I've always believed a rule that allows one driver to attack and removes the right of another driver to defend is fundamentally wrong. Most on this site are probably sick of hearing my solution. I'm a purist at heart and history teaches us if they removed the one move rule and outlawed blocking completely, there would be plenty of overtaking as drivers learn't or reacquainted themselves with drafting. Wonderful to watch and no need for DRS handing an unfair advantage to the attacking driver.
 
downforce said:
Outlaw blocking completely? Isn;t that the same as removing the right of the driver to defend?
Click to expand
No it's not. The lead driver defends by staying on the racing line which is always the fastest entry to a corner. The attacking driver tucks in behind him gaining a draft and if he judges it correctly will gain enough tow to slipstream past before the corner, though he's forced to go off line to achieve the pass. The overtaken driver of course has the opportunity to do the same and regain the place on the next lap. There are certain circuits that lend themselves to drafting, Monza is one though there are others also. If you watch racing from the 60's right through to the 80's drafting was the norm and it was totally unacceptable and considered dangerous for the driver that was being attacked to swerve to prevent an overtaking move. Formula One appears to be the only top level form of motorsport that allows the one move rule, in other words blocking. There's plenty of overtaking in open wheel racing in the US, on the ovals and road circuits, but if a driver tries even a half block he will be black flagged. It's not tolerated for safety reasons and in the interests of good fair racing.
 
Kewee

I can't agree with you on this at all! There is not some invisible line called the racing line to which a driver must stick! The racing line is wherever the driver wants to put his car! There may well be a qualifying line - which optimises lap time, but as soon as you ban defensive driving (which seems to be what you are suggesting), it is no longer racing! Even with DRS, at most circuits drivers can still defend....
 
The Artist.....I'm sure you won't be the only one that disagrees with me. There is very much a racing line on every circuit. It's the fastest way round a track and is a set line through a series of corners. Get the entry into the first corner wrong and your problems will be magnified through the following corners, so badly that a driver may well run out of road if he goes off-line at the beginning of a series of two or three corners. Your not banning defensive driving by outlawing blocking, a driver defends by staying on the racing line, forcing an attacking driver off-line to attempt a pass, if he's good enough. DRS makes defending impossible. At least four of the worlds top drivers were swallowed up in Spain by not being able to use their DRS to defend against an attacking driver. It's manufactured overtaking and has nothing to do with skill. I would bet that Sir Jackie Stewart would agree with everything I've said as would most drivers of his era.
 
Kewee

But that's just not true. An overtake always leads to a loss of time for both drivers; why? Well, the driver, if he goes to the inside to overtake WILL overtake, as a) he has the shorter line and b) the leading driver won't be able to 'clip the apex'... This leads to a guaranteed overtake and both drivers losing time.

What you are suggesting is akin to a football match where you say that both teams are not allowed a goalkeeper....
 
The Artist.....What you've just described is exactly what I said in my original posting. As I said, and you've just said the same, if a driver gets a good draft then slipstreams up alongside, or better still past the driver he's attacking and then gets his breaking point right and holds his line through the corner without running wide, (quite a lot to get right isn't there?) then he deserves the pass. As I said, the driver that's just lost his place has the chance of regaining it on the next lap. What we've discussed here requires a huge amount of skill, surely that's preferable to one driver opening a stupid slot in his rear wing, gaining an extra 15mph and cruising past another driver before he even reaches the corner leaving the other driver powerless to defend. To me that has nothing to do with racing or skill. We will probably have to agree to disagree.
 
I watched the highlights of the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix on Sky F1 at the weekend.

Besides the fact that it was one of my all-time favourite Schumacher races LOL, provided some excellent examples of the quality of Eddie Irvine :whistle: and was one of the greatest disappointments along with Hungary 1997 for Damon Hill :disappointed:, I noticed a couple of other interesting points:

Firstly the Gurney flap, which device I had more or less forgotten about. As the circuit dried out from a wet start, one of the drivers had the flap removed from the rear wing during their scheduled re-fuelling stop, thus reducing the rear downforce so as to re-balance the car in the changed conditions. Not quite DRS, but nevertheless an early if crude form of variable downforce, eh?. I wonder, if it hard started to rain again, whether they could have re-fitted it?

Secondly, tyre debris off-line. Again I had forgotten (or never really appreciated in the first place) just how much debris the much-vaunted Bridgestone tyres left on the track in the form of 'marbles'. They looked almost as bad as today's Pirellis in that respect. Although I still don't like how extreme the current tyres have gone in terms of degradation, my view of them has been softened just a smidgeon after seeing that race again.
 
I have never taken the one-move only rule as legalised blocking - weaving across the track several times would be blocking.

My take on the one-move was that it allows the lead driver one attempt to break the tow effect of the car behind, but if that fails he is not allowed to make any other 'blocking only' movements.

It's not a lot of difference to what Kewee is arguing with regard to allowing drafting/slipstreaming only, but with the driver in front being allowed the single choice of movement, invariably going off line, if he wants to take that risk.

As to the DRS and Pirelli tyres situation at this point in time, I consider it to be a case of 'be careful what you wish for'.

It's not long ago many were complaining about processional F1 with overtaking nigh on impossible, allegedly, although the best still managed to do it - now it's complaints that it's all too easy to pass, which is what was being wished for. :givemestrength:

OK, it may have gone too far this season, but the same voices demand that every season must be better than the one before. :nah:

Thankfully, today's news reports seem to signal some sanity, and have stopped a move-the-goalposts knee jerk reaction.
 
racecub said:
teabagyokel my concern isn't Mercedes lack of competitiveness, it's lack of racing, lack of cars going flat out, lack of drivers putting the car at the limit. Apart from Spain Mercedes have performed better than I expected, so it's not that. I just don't want to see the pinnacle of motor sport running around the track slower than the lower category and 3-5 secs off their potential pace. Also not even able to drive flat out in quali because the tyres won't hold out for even one lap.
Click to expand
:yesss:

Absolutely.....I also have to agree what I read on another site, when the poster said that, " F1 should not be a competition to see who the best tire nurse is. "
 
downforce said:
By drafting I assume you mean slipstreaming?

which still happens today. Removing a drivers right to block seems just as artificial to me as DRS - more so even.
Click to expand
Drafting and slipstreaming are the same thing of course. As I said, there are and would be many who will disagree with me, I don't have a problem with that. As I have said you only have to watch a few DVD's of racing during the 60's through to the 80's to see how high the quality of the racing was. Swerving to block another driver from passing was introduced to the sport by Michael Schumacher and it cost Damon Hill a World Title. I'm probably older than many on this site and don't enjoy artificiality in motorsport and there's nothing more artificial than DRS.
 
This is the tire thread right?

So it appears that the FIA put a stop to Pirelli's plan to go back in time. They cite the Reg that all teams must endorse in-season changes. The tires going forward will not be akin to the 2012 rubber. Only minor changes will be incorporated in an effort to stop the embarrassing de-laminations.
 
Hmmm, Steel absorbs more heat than Kevlar? Well who would have thought it? Oh, that's right, anyone with half a brain who has ever held a hot metal pan and used a fabric to stop themselves getting burnt! I wonder how people actually get this sort of thing through without a full on high pressure testing cycle to point out the obvious to themselves.

Actually this change may help Merc out a little bit. With the tyre composition not being so quick to absorb higher levels of heat, the tyres may last a little longer for them...
 
Some interesting thoughts from Mr Infinite Wisdom: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/107564

For those of you in the "making drivers cope with degrading tyres is ruining everything" camp, what do you make of the suggestion that it's no different to having to drive to the limits of a gearbox/turbo/engine/insert-component-here, à la 70s/80s?

(Haven't quite worked out if I agree with his sentiment or not...)
 

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