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[Tony006]

I have a suggestion to have tyres supplied by multiple manufacturers but avoid the problems normally associated with a tyre war and promoting some added benefits as well.

There are currently 4 manufacturers in the frame for the new tyre supply contract Michelin, Avon, Pirelli and Bridgestone, and with my idea all 4 could supply tyres to all teams on a rotation basis.

This idea will work from 2 tyre suppliers through to maybe 5 or 6, but I will base it on 4.

*Each tyre manufacturer is to provide 3 dry compounds of tyres, allocated as soft, medium & hard and 2 wet compounds of tyres, allocated as intermediate and extreme per season. From the 2nd year of a manufacturers supply the dry compounds are reduce to just 2 for the season, allocated as soft & hard.

*At each race each manufacturer is to supply 2 compounds of dry tyres and both compounds of wet compounds to their allocated teams.

*before the start of the season a ‘fixture list’ is produce for each team entry allocating 2 tyre manufacturers per team per race. Much like the knockout stages in the football champions league, which could be done at a formula 1 season launch event each team draws its tyre fixture list from a pool to decide their tyre manufacturer allocation for each race of the season.

For 4 manufacturers this gives 6 different combinations:
Avon/Bridgestone
Avon/Michelin
Avon/Pirelli
Bridgestone/Michelin
Bridgestone/Pirelli
Michelin/Pirelli

For a 20 race season therefore each team would use each combination 3 times, plus 2 of the combinations a 4th time (subsequent seasons it could be devised to make sure each teams extra 4th repeat of the tyre combination is not replicated). The tyre fixture list could be devised so that each teams tyre allocation is unique for the season of groups of teams run the same set of fixtures. If it is the latter then you would want to make sure the top finishing teams from the previous year’s season have different tyre fixtures.

2 manufactures would give just 1 combination, 3 would give 3 combinations, 5 would give 10 combinations and 6, 16 combinations. More than 5 manufactures and the tyre allocation fixture would need to be done over at least 2 seasons

*For the race weekend the tyre allocation per car would be:
The softer available dry compound being know as the option tyre and the harder available dry compound being known as the prime tyre, if there is a soft, medium & hard compounds available for the season.
*Friday for practice 1 & 2 – 10x initial set of tyres compromising of 5 sets from each allocated manufacturer, compromising of 1x option dry, 2x prime dry, 2x intermediate wet, 2x extreme wet.
*After the end of Friday practice each team has to nominate 1 compound from each of their allocated manufacturers to use for the rest of the weekend, the nominations can be different for each driver/car with the team. This would give each driver/car would a choice of 4 different tyre combinations for the rest of the weekend soft/soft, soft/hard, hard/soft & hard/hard, giving more strategy options and variety.
*The teams return 2x dry compounds from each manufacture, leaving 1x set compound of their nominated compounds from the Friday tyre allocation from each manufacturer. The teams are then supplied 3x new sets of each of the compounds they have nominated to give 8 sets of tyres to use for Saturday practice, qualifying and the race.
*For the race, the tyre rules are as they are for the 2010 season, the top 10 qualifiers, start the race on the set of tyres they qualified on, and both types of tyres have to be used during the race.

*Each tyre manufacture for every race would supply tyres to half the grid, compromising of 4x option dry, 5x prime dry, 2x intermediate wet, 2x extreme wet, totaling 13 sets of tyres per car supplied which is similar to the 2010, but at least 3 sets of one of the dry tyre compounds would be unused and re-allocated for use at another race. Each driver/car would in turn have a maximum 20 sets per race weekend, 10 from each allocated manufacturer.

The advantages I believe this offers over a single tyre manufacture are the following:
*The excitement of a tyre competition is offered but costs and car speeds are kept under control with the tyre compound restrictions and limited formula 1 testing. Tyre manufacturers are also contracted to supply the all teams rather than negotiating with each team individually, again reducing costs and all tyre manufacturers would be supplying tyres under the same terms and conditions.
*All the manufacturers tyres during the course of the season by all the teams, so every tyre manufacture supplies the race winning and the championship wining car at some point, and is highly likely to win races every season.
*All teams have the same chance of enjoying the benefit of using the optimal tyre at some point during the season. This should negate all the problem with tyre wars in the past where all the top teams ended up being supplied by the same manufacture or where one tyre manufacturer had a consistent advantage over its rivals.
*Enhance strategy options for teams and drivers which could produce more intrigue and exciting races.
*The tyre manufacturers are guaranteed to supply and equal share of the teams, and all would need to produce the same amount of tyres per race.
*For the 2011 season they tyres could be the current 13” inch spec tyres with 3x dry compounds, and from 2012 the tyres the proposed 18” spec tyres with 2 x dry compounds. Bridgestone would have an advantage initially due to being the current supplier, but the rotational allocation will balance this out, and the change to 18” spec tyres and a reduction to 2x dry compounds in 2012 will level out the completion between the tyre manufacturers.

This I believe is a good, neat and fairly simple solution to the supply of tyres for formula 1, giving a lot of benefits over a single tyre supply, while having no disadvantages of having multiple tyre manufacturers.