34 replies to this topic

[RekF1]

As they're the talk of the town at the moment, I thought I'd humour the idea of lap limits for tyre types.

 

I think it's a great idea. They suggested a 50% race distance limit for primes and 30% for options. That would mean the tyres wouldn't need to be as sensitive, and would stop last years Russian GP from ever happening again.

 

I know it's a little artificial, but it gives Pirelli one less job to do(create more pit stops), and would give the teams more strategic options. I'd tweak it further by letting the teams have access to 3 or 4 tyre types during practice and then voting  after FP3 which ones to use for the race.

 

Any thoughts? 

 

 

[Marklar]

If they are doing lap limits than almost everyone would have the same strategy. It would heavily disadvantage teams with good degredation. Its stupid. They should just produce tyres which are not exploding.

[ardbeg]

Pitting because they have run a certain distance rather than that they tires lost performance. Perfect. Bye bye strategy. Who needs it?

[RekF1]

If they are doing lap limits than almost everyone would have the same strategy. It would heavily disadvantage teams with good degredation. Its stupid. They should just produce tyres which are not exploding.

 

Why?. it wouldn't stop under/over-cutting. The tyres would still have an optimum lifespan and performance drop off. and what if the teams with poor deg can only manage 15-25% on options?

 

I don't see how it would be any worst than currently.

[ANF]

I don't see how two mandatory pit stops would give the teams more strategic options – or the viewers a more exciting race.

[AustinF1]

Is this Pirelli's idea, or the op's?

[RekF1]

Is this Pirelli's idea, or the op's?

It was their idea in 2013. I'm entertaining it with extras now.

[ardbeg]

Why?. it wouldn't stop under/over-cutting. The tyres would still have an optimum lifespan and performance drop off. and what if the teams with poor deg can only manage 15-25% on options?

 

I don't see how it would be any worst than currently.

Basically no difference then?

[CPR]

Hmm, I thought I had done a post on this some time ago. I remember thinking about it. Maybe I started writing a post and scrapped it (I do this quite often).

 

There's a lot of nice things you could do with enforced lap limits for tires. For a start, it would mean you could make them a lot stronger / durable. Races would become more of a sprint, if the tire lap limit was set just before they start to degrade under punishing use. You could also have interesting strategic options if all types of types were always available - eg super soft tires could have limit of 10% of the laps on some tracks (including qualifying) while hard tires could do 50% (or more). The lap limits could be adjusted both for safety and the show, rather than the tire designers coming up with something and then the teams fighting back to overcome it.

 

But, there's a number of problems. I think you'd have to have some leeway else you could have races where the entire field pits on the same lap, which would be very dangerous if it happened when they're close together. Maybe some way to trade a lap on one stint for another to mix things up. Another issue would that it would be blatantly artificial. Of course, deliberately bad tires are artificial (and potentially dangerous too) so it depends how you feel about the different styles - in a sense, there still is a tire war but now it's between the designers on the teams and the designers at the tire manufacturer.

[Marklar]

Why?. it wouldn't stop under/over-cutting. The tyres would still have an optimum lifespan and performance drop off. and what if the teams with poor deg can only manage 15-25% on options?
 
I don't see how it would be any worst than currently.

In this case the teams have to do at least (50+30 is just 80) two pitstops and believe me except of some circuits with very high deg everyone will do 2 pitstops and at almost the same time. It would be somehow the system of the DTM which is poor imo.

[OO7]

The current Pirelli's are already perhaps the most regulated tyres in F1 history.  They just need to improve them rather than impose more restrictions on the teams.

[rodlamas]

If that happens, everybody will pit on the same lap. It will be like CART 2003.

[fridge46]

It will be like CART 2003.

 

I thought exactly the same, but they did it with fuel? Having windows when a car had to pit for tyres is essentially no different to having to refuel. Any strategy went out of the window.

 

From what I remember, it was horrible - but CART got away with it as all the cars were pretty much the same (I think there were 2 chassis', but they had the same engines and tyres) so there was some on track action.

 

If such a thing was applied to F1 right now then everyone will go flat out as the need to preserve tyres would not be required - the Mercs will run away with the show with the rest lining up according to engine/chassis strengths for that particular circuit. Ok, there maybe some in-team fights, or involving out of position cars, but thats it!

[Nonesuch]

Rather than coming up with yet another bogus idea Pirelli (I realise it's the one from 2013) might want to take note of how McLaren has handled supplying their spec-parts to F1 teams.

 

That this non-competitor is hugging the spotlight to such a degree is not reflecting well on F1 as a competitive sport between professional racing teams.

Edited by Nonesuch, 25 August 2015 - 20:48.

[Spillage]

As others have said, mandatory stint lengths means no strategy. The best races, for me, are often ones where two different strategies are available - China 2012 springs immediately to mind. That won't be possible anymore if teams are forbidden from taking a gamble on their strategies.

 

There's no excuses for Pirelli anyway. Before it explodes, a tyre should give ample notice in the form of grip loss. Vettel thought he was risking his race on Sunday - he didn't realise he was risking his life.

[YoungGun]

Introduce a 3rd race tyre, where all 3 must be used. Team decides when and how.

Edited by YoungGun, 25 August 2015 - 22:39.

[pdac]

Just make tyres to last the whole race distance and get rid of this stupid pit-stop/undercut/cover car X strategy rubbish.

[Scudder]

If all compounds are available for every race, that might somehow work. Otherwise the lap limit would just kill race strategy options. 

[ardbeg]

I think Williams got it right. Each tire type must be used together with each other tire type and minimum 2 compounds should be mounted at the car at any point of the race. If Pirelli then bring all their tires a team could start with, for instance at Monza, hard LF, medium LR, soft RF and a supersoft RR. No, actually they should start with two supersoft rear and since it's mostly right turns they could...

Hmm... I'm not sure how they should do it, but it'll be great!

So fed up with the never ending tire discussions. There are only one tire supplier, no competition, still 50% of the electrons active to keep this site alive are dealing with discussions and articles about tires. 50% if the words uttered by commentators on TV are about tires.  

Edited by ardbeg, 25 August 2015 - 23:51.

[RekF1]

I think Williams got it right. Each tire type must be used together with each other tire type and minimum 2 compounds should be mounted at the car at any point of the race. If Pirelli then bring all their tires a team could start with, for instance at Monza, hard LF, medium LR, soft RF and a supersoft RR. No, actually they should start with two supersoft rear and since it's mostly right turns they could...
Hmm... I'm not sure how they should do it, but it'll be great!
So fed up with the never ending tire discussions. There are only one tire supplier, no competition, still 50% of the electrons active to keep this site alive are dealing with discussions and articles about tires. 50% if the words uttered by commentators on TV are about tires.

Yet as far as I can tell there's no Pirelli tyre thread. I agree that tyre discussions take up too much of the spotlight, but at least with these rules they're not forced to make such fake tyres. If there was a big enough off set between the the types it could mix up strategy.

[Ricardo F1]

Makes perfect sense to me, they cannot possibly adhere to every teams want or need as this weekend proved.  40 laps of doing what??

[SenorSjon]

I would like to switch to 0% use of Pirelli tires. But I don't think Hembery likes that one.

[rodlamas]

Introduce a 3rd race tyre, where all 3 must be used. Team decides when and how.

Introduce 2 tire manufacturers. This has worked on every category.

 

Freeing up regulations has always made racing better rather than the opposite.

[OO7]

Introduce 2 tire manufacturers. This has worked on every category.

 

Freeing up regulations has always made racing better rather than the opposite.

If the other manufacturer was Michelin, then by the following year Pirelli would have pulled out, as I doubt any of the teams would seek to use their tyres.

[ray b]

they need a semi run flat tyre

one that can do a lap after a puncture

 

AND NOT EXPLODE 

[pdac]

I would like to switch to 0% use of Pirelli tires. But I don't think Hembery likes that one.

 

Lap times would plummet - the cars don't go so fast on just wheel rims

[Jejking]

HELL. NO.

[garagetinkerer]

If they are doing lap limits than almost everyone would have the same strategy. It would heavily disadvantage teams with good degredation. Its stupid. They should just produce tyres which are not exploding.

Even though, they had fixed problems from early year in 2013 by mid season, it didn't stop Pirelli from changing tyres for 2014. Right now, there is only one team at the front, and tyre change may help more team achieve parity. I mean, most were complaining about tyre changes in 2013. I was also complaining, but that was more due to change in compounds, which it seemed from the message conveyed at the time to not be necessary.

[LuckyStrike1]

How about they just make tyres that go slower when being worn rather than exploding .... 

 

A tyre that explosed beacause of wear but not so sever wear so that it affects lap times dramatically seems very stupid and is probably something that should be corrected first. 

[josepatches]

You can use each type of tyres and you can do the number of pit stops you want. Every kind of tyres with a maximum number of laps. Example hard 100% of the race, medium 50% , softs 34%.....

Some drivers could go to the end without stop, some could try one stop with mediums....

[ThisIsMischaW]

How about they just make tyres that go slower when being worn rather than exploding ....  

 

Yes this a million times.

 

I would go the opposite way to the thread starter. Deregulate the tyre side of the sport. Remove the one manufacturer limit, let the teams use whatever compounds they want.

[FerrariV12]

Would be dead against this. It's bad enough that we have that use both types of tyre rule (I know that pre-dates Pirelli) that basically enforces one mandatory stop. Looking at the numbers it looks like this would make it worse and mandate two.

[chipmcdonald]

If they are doing lap limits than almost everyone would have the same strategy. It would heavily disadvantage teams with good degredation. Its stupid. They should just produce tyres which are not exploding.

 

 

 Everybody does the same strategy anyhow, unless they're in a hopeless category and are trying to do a long shot. 

 

 The problem is that Pirelli is having to deliberately manufacture defective tires, and then announce a rough estimate of when they will lose performance, while at the same time allowing that estimate to cover their legal glutes for building a "safe" tire.

 

 Hembery's statement about Vettel going past the 30% mark is a bunch of flim-flam.   If the 30% figure is also a point where safety goes away as well - then they shouldn't be allowed to drive past that, very clearly.   The onus is on Pirelli to demarcate where safety becomes and issue, and not leave it as a question mark.

[SealTheDiffuser]

kick em out.

 

Bridgestone back please.

[redreni]

I don't think it would make things any safer, necessarily, unless you're going to limit things like camber, rake and pressure as well, because teams will want to use all the performance the tyre can give them, and if you limit the number of laps per set, they will set the car up more aggressively to extract more grip and performance per lap from the tyre.

 

I do think it would make pitstop strategy much more predictable. The best thing about the current tyre rules is that if somebody behind you pits and you don't cover them, they will pass you, so the game is to work out how much earlier than the theoretical optimum lap you're willing to pit in order to gain or maintain track position. If somebody behind you tries to get you to pit but you think it's too early - that you won't make it to the end - your tactic then is to stay out until the theoretical optimum lap (or maybe slightly longer), accepting that you will lose track position, then hope to make places back at the end on fresh tyres. This gives us on-track battles for position at the end of the races. This proposed rule sounds like an excellent way of stopping that.