https://www.grandpri...ot-a-done-deal/
Mods, please feel free to merge this if a topic already exists. I did a quick search and could not find one.
The proposed tyre blanket ban for 2024 is under discussions and needs team agreement to go ahead. The drivers have already spoken out against it with Lewis, Max, Lando and Magnussen all saying it won’t work and will lead to many more crashes.
The drivers are of course referring to tyres that Pirelli hasn’t yet developed. Pirelli’s intent is to develop tyres that will have much more grip from cold but whether they can actually achieve that is another thing. Even if they improve it a lot, it will still be a compromise and I suspect the tyres will be more fragile to higher temp inputs such as being pushed hard and will likely suffer more thermal deg. I doubt there’s a free lunch here with the design such as Pirelli can develop a tyre that has more grip when cold, warms up faster but doesn’t suffer notably more thermal degradation.
On the flip side, SC restarts will be a little more controlled for the cars that haven’t pitted if the tyres are such that they still retain most of their grip as the temps fall away during the SC period.
I think at the very least, Pirelli should actually put a suitable prototype on the table and the teams test that and only sign off if they’re happy with the product. As it is now, Pirelli has done a test last year with the drivers on an early prototype that falls very short of the mark and when the drivers complain, Pirelli retorts “But it’s not the final version, which will be better” and expect the teams to sign off on nothing but hope.
What do people think - do you support the proposed tyre blanket ban?