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I forget who said it, but one of the drivers made it clear that the 'delta' thing isn't quite true. They have an estimated laptime they expect to be able to drive at and still hold tirelife for however long, but since conditions change so much and since they dont usually get to do real long runs in practice, its not something they strictly drive to or anything.
But anyways, my point is that in bike racing, they are often going a good deal slower than they could in order to make tires last, too. People say that its not racing because they're not pushing to the limits, which means that bike racing isn't racing either.
I don't know how you can even begin to compare the levels of tyre nursing in bike racing with what we have in F1. It's an important factor, but more important is the absolute, relentless, pummelling pace of the rider. MotoGP is like a utopia - the racing is dynamic, it's superb and highly entertaining, yet without the need to sacrifice any core values to make it appear this way.
The key issue, and difference between what we have now in F1 and what people perceive as a traditional dose of good old tyre management, is precisely the nature of the degradation. Hamilton summed it up very well back in 2011 at his first test at Barcelona with them, the first occasion they were being subjected to high speed, long duration corners:
"It's very strange.....even compared to last year, when we had heavy fuel and you had to drive it a little easier at the beginning of the race to preserve the tyres. The tyres just go away so fast and there's nothing you can do about it. I didn't feel like I was really racing the car." and in a separate interview "it's not racing, it's just driving around."
Why this is occurring is explained well by Mark Hughes:
"The mechanism by which the circuit rubbers in and a chemical bonding unfolds at higher grip levels didn't really happen - almost all of the grip was 'mechanical' rather than chemical, derived by the tyres contact patch simply clawing the surface against the road. It used to be the case that as grip rose, the chemical bonding process would increase. That meant fast cars did not usually degrade their tyres faster than slow cars, but with the Pirellis the faster you went, the faster the tyre lost performance"
This is not normal tyre behaviour, tyres should be able to 'come back' to the driver and he should have a greater influence on their performance beyond simply his chosen pace - that basically doesn't happen with the P-Zero's - they just churn up faster, exponentially to the loads being placed on them because of their high thermal degradation and lack of chemical grip. The old tricks for looking after tyres - minimising tractive slip, shortening the corners, minimising tyre scrub - are secondary to the amount the tyre is being loaded through a corner and its basic mileage. How do you reduce the tyre loadings? Simply slow down, particularly through the fast corners, hence the 8 tenths comments. This isn't racing at the maximum while taking good care of the rubber, this is just pacing yourself while taking good care of the rubber, and trying to judge it better than the other guy. But please, I hope I will be spared the BS that this is some sort of supreme virtuoso requirement placed upon the driver, equal to or even more demanding than driving at the limit of adhesion, as if that is some sort of dull, easy bore for them.....Nothing is more challenging for the driver than driving at the limit, and the faster you're going, the more nervous and twitchy the car becomes, the bigger the challenge, the more skill is required. It is precisely the opposite with this enforced endurance racing.
These tyres are the ultimate equaliser, a form of rubber banding. What could be clearer of this than Pirelli's admission that Red Bull could have lapped the field based on their estimations in Malaysia, were they on properly durable, flat out race tyres? Imagine Tennis was still in an era where it was all about having a big serve to rely on to win, and in order to cure this they artificially introduced a racket which absorbed more of the energy the harder you hit the ball, penalising the hard hitters - it's that daft.
Edited by PretentiousBread, 12 April 2013 - 23:52.
