Formula 1 - 2013 Season

[Kaotik]

The difference is, last year the drivers weren't being told not to race.

Yet somehow they manage to drive just as fast, something doesn't add up.

There's 3 major differences to last season:
Red Bull screwed up with tire management on their car
Mercedes did a major screw up with tire management on their car
McLaren didn't improve over last seasons car unlike the rest.

The rest is just talk with nothing to back it up.

 

[jimbo75]

The cars are faster, that just means that the drivers are driving within themselves more.

Vettel 4-stopped while conserving his tyres all race. Did any of the previous 4-stop winners do that? No, they raced 4 stops. Vettel won by less than a second in 2011, Maldonaldo by 3 seconds in 2012. They were racing not saving tyres.

 

[UniversalTruth]

Vettel 4-stopped while conserving his tyres all race

It is his fault. He should have stopped 5 or 6 times, so probably would have had better chances

 

[Rurouni]

It is his fault. He should have stopped 5 or 6 times, so probably would have had better chances

The problem with doing more than 3 stops is that you ended up using used tyres. Unless it's a mixed weather race, more than 4 stops will definitely hurt you. Actually I don't mind more than 4 stops, provided that FIA add the tyre allocation.

 

[Kaotik]

The cars are faster, that just means that the drivers are driving within themselves more.

Vettel 4-stopped while conserving his tyres all race. Did any of the previous 4-stop winners do that? No, they raced 4 stops. Vettel won by less than a second in 2011, Maldonaldo by 3 seconds in 2012. They were racing not saving tyres.

2011 after 2nd there was 35 sec gap, then another 12 secs, the next one got already lapped - are you saying only 2 drivers were driving as fast as they could and "raced"?
2012 there 3 within few secs and 4th within 15 secs but then a 50 second gap to 5th - does this mean only 4 drivers drove as fast as they could and "raced"?
2013 there was bigger gaps between the top 3, but 5th was closer to winner than in 2012, and 4th was only couple secs further from lead than 3rd in 2011.

 

[UniversalTruth]

Formula 1 - Ferrari slams Red Bull over tyres

Ferrari has hit out at rival Red Bull's criticisms of the current tyres in Formula 1, saying it does not understand why it should feel 'ashamed' for winning races with aggressive four-stop strategies

"These are difficult times for people with poor memories," said the column. "Maybe it's because of the huge amount of information available today that people are too quick to talk, forgetting things that happened pretty much in the recent past.
"Or maybe the brain cells that control memory only operate selectively, depending on the results achieved on track by their owners.
"A classic example of this is the current saga regarding the number of pitstops.
"Voices have been raised to underline the fact that various teams, some of whom got to the podium and others who were quite a way off, made four pitstops in the recent Spanish Grand Prix, making the race hard to follow.
"It's a shame that these worthy souls kept quiet two years ago when, at the very same Catalunya Circuit and on the Istanbul track, five of the six drivers who got to those two podiums made exactly the same number of pitstops as did Alonso and Massa last Sunday in the Spanish Grand Prix."
It added: "In fact, there's nothing new about winning a race making so many pitstops, even discounting those where it was down to changeable weather.
"One only has to look back to 2004, when Michael Schumacher won the French Grand Prix thanks to what was a three stop strategy, later changed to a four stopper.

 

[Billy Idol]

Oh boy, people really have no clue. They don't know how F1 works...still think that the tyre discussion is about making the racing sport better, letting drivers push to the limit, get some real racing again...oh boy, people are so naive nowadays, it hurts. But who cares...

 

[Kaotik]

FIA has apparently stated that Pirelli can only change the tires safety (which is funny since they're probably the safest tires when they break, ever), their performance characteristics and such can't be changed, they can't be "made last longer" to reduce pitstops etc.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/107487

It's actually in the F1 regulations that only way you could change tire specifications after September of the previous year is if all teams agree on it.

 

[Davros]

what they can do is change the labeling. Soft for options instead of supersoft, hard for prime instead of medium ect.

 

[Kaotik]

what they can do is change the labeling. Soft for options instead of supersoft, hard for prime instead of medium ect.

I don't think they're allowed to bring new tires any more than change current tires specs, so that would just mean the softest wouldn't be used ever, but the current hardest would still have to be the hardest one

 

[Otto Dafe]

I think in 2015 the limiting factor should be the transmission. Each driver would get a limited number of gear changes per race, so for example a driver might want to take a hairpin in 2nd but would only shift down to 5th, leading commentators to say, "we think he's on a four shift strategy for this corner." Naturally if you run out you have to finish the race in whatever gear you're in.

 

[UniversalTruth]

I think in 2015 the limiting factor should be the transmission. Each driver would get a limited number of gear changes per race

Source for this? It sounds impossibly unreal. They want to transform humans into robots?

Seriously, I don't see a sane reason in introducing such a type of limitation

 

[jimbo75]

Sarcasm UT.

 

[Davros]

I don't think they're allowed to bring new tires any more than change current tires specs,

Pirelli can bring any two of its 4 dry weather tyre types to a race
the choice is up to them. they arnt changing specs the types are called prime and option and the harder tyre could in fact be a soft tyre

 

[Kaotik]

Pirelli can bring any two of its 4 dry weather tyre types to a race
the choice is up to them. they arnt changing specs the types are called prime and option and the harder tyre could in fact be a soft tyre

Ye I meant that current hardest tyre has to be hardest, no matter what they call it or what the other tyre options are

 

[Silent_Buddha]

2011 after 2nd there was 35 sec gap, then another 12 secs, the next one got already lapped - are you saying only 2 drivers were driving as fast as they could and "raced"?
2012 there 3 within few secs and 4th within 15 secs but then a 50 second gap to 5th - does this mean only 4 drivers drove as fast as they could and "raced"?
2013 there was bigger gaps between the top 3, but 5th was closer to winner than in 2012, and 4th was only couple secs further from lead than 3rd in 2011.

Which is exactly to be expected if the fastest cars are limited to the same overall race pace as slower cars due to having to manage tire endurance.

Take 2011 and make the top 4 cars have to drive slower due to tires and voila, we have 2013.

At that point it really doesn't matter how fast your car can go. It matters far more how far you can make the tires go.

Doesn't matter if the 5th fastest car this year is almost as fast as the fastest car in 2011 when those 4 cars ahead of it are likely significantly faster than the top 2011 car, but cannot leverage that speed due to the tire situation.

Then again. Since the 80's, F1 has had a tradition of trying to slow down race pace while manufacturer's try to increase race pace. Getting rid of turbo. Then ground effects after Senna's death, etc.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that F1 are artificially slowing things down with regards to the tires.

Regards,
SB

 

[vjPiedPiper]

I think the big issue with the tires is the difference in performance between when they are "on" and when they fall away. Ferrari's point about the number of stops is correct, but they ignore the fact that in those previous years a car with a set of tires that was 5 laps old would still be somewhat competitive with a driver on a fresh set. These days, it's 5 laps of awesome performance, then it's down to conservation mode for 7-10 laps, and your already losing 1-3 seconds per lap. In previous years, the difference in lap times between a tire that is "ON" and an old tire was much less.

 

[cjo]

Sure the delamination of the tyre looks bad, but it's not any worse than deflation (which can easily lead to whole tire exploding) in terms of safety really, and only happens if you damage the tyre from debris.

Has someone been sprinkling nails on the track? I've never seen so many catastrophic tyre failures in such a small number of races.

 

[jimbo75]

The FIA reject Pirelli's proposal to go back to last year's tyres

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/22593977

 

[Billy Idol]

The FIA reject Pirelli's proposal to go back to last year's tyres

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/22593977

Good news.