77 replies to this topic

[dave34m]

And that's why it happened to Ferrari as well, is it?

 

Well we all know that Ferrari definately are cheating, come on really
 

[Lee Nicolle]

Pirelli and their supporters keep on blaming the drivers, the cars, the tarmac, the kerbs, the weather, George Bush farting...never does it occur to them it could actually be the **** tyres.

Looking at the pic of the Red Bull at the top and it looks like a tyre that has failed through underinflation. Puncture? Very maybe or are the teams back to their tricks?

[HP]

I don't ever want to hear about tyres in racing ever again. A necessary component of a sport that shouldn't generate hardly any talk or controversy.

 

Well, Bridgestone wasn't too happy when nobody talked about the tires. Pirelli isn't either.

 

Plus it's always good to have an excuse for a team that doesn't deliver.

 

But the FIA's way of creating a closer competetion, by having these types of tires is questionable at best.

 

The question one has to put to any tire supplier is, is it possible to develop tires that don't delaminate or getting easy punctured, while at the same wear down quickly? It looks its a tricky business to get it right, it seems.

 

A tire war and risk what happened at Indy in 2005 seems still to be the better option. Due to the nature of the situation (and where it happened) Michelin fixed the problem for the next race for good. It seems to me that way is also better for a tire supplier to stay on top of their game. Also if there is more than one supplier, then excuses like track problems don't really work if the other tire is fine Altough for Indy 2005 that route has been tried. But imagine the next race after Indy Michelin had the same issue popping up again, like it seems to happen with Pirelli ATM.

[HP]

Looking at the pic of the Red Bull at the top and it looks like a tyre that has failed through underinflation. Puncture? Very maybe or are the teams back to their tricks?

Hasn't FIA introduced limitations to camber and tire pressure?

[pingu666]

think the teams have to be the right side of pirelli's limits, think its on a per track basis i guess

[Rybo]

Hasn't FIA introduced limitations to camber and tire pressure?

Pirelli have always set limits, but there weren't regarded. Now the FIA can police those limits, but they aren't going to call in every car every time.

[Peter Perfect]

I don't ever want to hear about tyres in racing ever again. A necessary component of a sport that shouldn't generate hardly any talk or controversy.

 

Imagine this **** in another sport. "Well here we are on match day 3 of the Premier League. Adidas has released an updated ball after complaints the ball used in weeks 1 and 2 was too light and free kicks were going out of the park every time you turned around, but the new ball has come under criticism for being too soft, as we've already seen 9 of them deflate in pre-match warmups this week. An Adidas spokesperson has addressed the issue and asked players not to kick the ball so hard".

You mean like the 2010 World Cup? -  http://en.wikipedia....Adidas_Jabulani

[Timstr11]

I thought FOM was the one who tells pirelli how to make their tires?

So why is FOM(and fans) dumping responsibility on Pirelli for the cheese tires?

You're right. FOM has specified to Pirelli that under specified conditions the tyre should delaminate or explode 

[SanDiegoGo]

The Red Bulls and Ferrari prefered the original 2013 tyres, didn't they? The ones we started the season on.

[MortenF1]

No, absolutely not! Atleast not Red Bull! How can you have missed their complaints?

[SanDiegoGo]

But they won 3 Grand Prix on them.

[sopa]

LOL. hilarious.

 

I don't ever want to hear about tyres in racing ever again. A necessary component of a sport that shouldn't generate hardly any talk or controversy.

 

Imagine this **** in another sport. "Well here we are on match day 3 of the Premier League. Adidas has released an updated ball after complaints the ball used in weeks 1 and 2 was too light and free kicks were going out of the park every time you turned around, but the new ball has come under criticism for being too soft, as we've already seen 9 of them deflate in pre-match warmups this week. An Adidas spokesperson has addressed the issue and asked players not to kick the ball so hard".

[sopa]

For the life of me I cannot understand, how can anyone blame kerbs. Racing cars have been racing over kerbs on circuits for decades already. There have been no problems, in any car series (bar some freak occurences ofc). And now suddenly kerbs are rubbish and bad things? wtf.

[Iridescent]

From what we've observed, though the tyre supplier knows better, the complete separation from the sidewalls ( a tear along both the the inner and outer part), it doesn't really look like debris or kerb induced.

[TomNokoe]

"@andrewbensonf1: Officials believe they have found what may have caused the tyre failures in practice on Friday - a piece of metal in the kerbs at Turn 13" "@andrewbensonf1: @AussieGrit says it does look like it could have caused punctures & drivers would accept explanation." Let's hope this is the end of it.

[SanDiegoGo]

Crisis over.

[ExFlagMan]

"@andrewbensonf1: Officials believe they have found what may have caused the tyre failures in practice on Friday - a piece of metal in the kerbs at Turn 13" "@andrewbensonf1: @AussieGrit says it does look like it could have caused punctures & drivers would accept explanation." Let's hope this is the end of it.

I rest my case!

[AustinF1]

Predictably Hembrey/Pirelli find a scapegoat piece of metal at turn 13 to blame for yesterday's punctures. NEWSFLASH: There always has been and will always be debris on a freaking race track and drivers have always and always will use or even exceed the kerbs. If we walked any race circuit in the world looking for possible puncture-causing debris, Does anyone doubt we'd find something? 

Tired of all the bs excuses. Make a tire that doesn't puncture so ****ing easily.

[ExFlagMan]

Predictably Hembrey/Pirelli find a scapegoat piece of metal at turn 13 to blame for yesterday's punctures. NEWSFLASH: There always has been and will always be debris on a freaking race track and drivers have always and always will use or even exceed the kerbs. If we walked any race circuit in the world looking for possible puncture-causing debris, Does anyone doubt we'd find something? 
Tired of all the bs excuses. Make a tire that doesn't puncture so ****ing easily.

How thick/strong/heavy does a tyre need to be to withstand penetration by a 10cm long chunk of metal? F1 on truck tyres anyone!

[redreni]

How thick/strong/heavy does a tyre need to be to withstand penetration by a 10cm long chunk of metal? F1 on truck tyres anyone!

 

As an ex-flag man, if you arrived at a corner where you were going to be posted and there was a 10cm chunk of metal protruding from a kerb, wouldn't you say anything? Don't the drivers and race engineers walk the track at the start of the weekend? What about Charlie Whiting, does he not carry out a detailed safety inspection? It seems difficult to believe that an object as dangerous as this one is supposed to be could have been missed by all those people.

 

We know from previous experience that, when there were genuine safety issues with Pirelli's tyres, rather than declare them openly so that the FIA could have stepped in to force through mid-season changes to the tyres on safety grounds, Pirelli tried to cover the issue up, making unsuccessful attempts to get permission to make changes on sporting grounds, leading to the problems that could easily have led to the curtailment of the British Grand Prix or much, much worse.

 

So when Pirelli make a statement like this which is inherently difficult to believe, and also spectacularly convenient for them, forgive me if I remain concerned about the quality and safety of their tyres. I'd much rather F1 signed for 2014 with a manufacturer that doesn't have a track record of making contradictory statements, covering up serious safety concerns with its tyres, lying to the governing body about its intention to inform all teams about an in-season tyre test, breaching the sporting regulations and breaching its contract with the FIA.

[ExFlagMan]

Given that the piece of metal that caused the problem apparently came off Kimi's Lotus, the question ought to be why it came off, either it was not attached properly or (and I find it very hard to believe that an F1 driver cannot manage to go round a corner without utilising the kerbs) maybe it came off when he ran over a kerb. Given that the part appeared to have been sheared off at one end I assume the kerb may have played a part.
Not a lot the marshals/Charlie can do about that, unless you want them to inspect the track after each car passes.

Edited by ExFlagMan, 24 August 2013 - 20:25.

[dau]

As an ex-flag man, if you arrived at a corner where you were going to be posted and there was a 10cm chunk of metal protruding from a kerb, wouldn't you say anything? Don't the drivers and race engineers walk the track at the start of the weekend? What about Charlie Whiting, does he not carry out a detailed safety inspection? It seems difficult to believe that an object as dangerous as this one is supposed to be could have been missed by all those people.[...]

Well either that or it came off one of the cars actually driving in that session. Like Kimi's Lotus, for example, which seemed to have suddenly developed a handling problem earlier in FP.

[F1ultimate]

 It seems difficult to believe that an object as dangerous as this one is supposed to be could have been missed by all those people.

 

Absolutley true. I was at Silverstone this year and the second the the final support race was over, hordes of marshals invaded the the circuit to sweep and tidy the circuit for the F1 race that was about to start. Some even padded grass that drivers had run over. A 10cm piece of metal would not go unnoticed.

[OO7]

I watched the BBC coverage a few hours ago and Gary Anderson basically stated what some of us posted on the Pirelli tyres & DRS thread a few months ago.  Back then Gary was pretty supportive of Pirelli even after Silverstone and suggested modifications to chamfer the rear sides of the curbs etc.  Today he said debris on a racing track is common place and that Pirelli need to make the tyres more robust at the expense of a little performance.

[redreni]

Given that the piece of metal that caused the problem apparently came off Kimi's Lotus, the question ought to be why it came off, either it was not attached properly or (and I find it very hard to believe that an F1 driver cannot manage to go round a corner without utilising the kerbs) maybe it came off when he ran over a kerb. Given that the part appeared to have been sheared off at one end I assume the kerb may have played a part.
Not a lot the marshals/Charlie can do about that, unless you want them to inspect the track after each car passes.

Ah sorry,I had the wrong end of the stick, there. Which come to think of it is hardly surprising when I was going by one of Andrew Benson‘s tweets. Debris is one thing, a "peice of metal in the kerbs" is something completely different. Debris is, of course, Pirelli‘s reflex reaction to any tyre failure (it was the reason for the Friday failures at Silverstone, if you recall, when there was still nothing wrong with the tyres.

I don‘t know what marshalls‘ instructions are but, judging by what one sees them doing, the usual practice seems to be to leave any debris that‘s either very small or out of harm‘s way until the end of the session, before sweeping away, but for larger or more obvious items of debris which are in a position where somebody is likely to run over them, yellow flags are shown and permission is sought from the race director to go onto the track to clear up, and the race director at his discretion can either decide to have the marshalls do nothing, or have them enter the track under double waved yellows to clear the debris, or he can red flag the session or, during a race, call the safety car to allow the debris to be cleared. None of that happened so either (a) the debris in this case was invisible, or (b) the marshalls were not paying much attention, or © it did not look to them like something that would give a racing car a puncture so they thought it appropriate to wait for the end of the session before attempting to clear it. My suspicion is that it was ©.

[spacekid]

Meh. I actually forgot that there was a race on this weekend, until I read about the tyre failures in practise.

 

Is anyone honestly surprised?

 

I epxect they will be fine during the race. If there are a few drops of rain they'll all be behind the safety car anyway, and if a few more tyres do go during the race I'm sure a 'reason' will be found.

[Tommay]

More tyre problems in GP3

[SanDiegoGo]

Absolutley true. I was at Silverstone this year and the second the the final support race was over, hordes of marshals invaded the the circuit to sweep and tidy the circuit for the F1 race that was about to start. Some even padded grass that drivers had run over. A 10cm piece of metal would not go unnoticed.

 

Bit it did. They(Pirelli) went out with the Charlie and found the piece of metal and then did analysis to show the puncture marks on Vettel's and Alonso tyres matched up. Are you saying they lied about finding the metal piece?

Edited by SanDiegoGo, 25 August 2013 - 08:09.