Why Indy Circuit is so hard on tyres?

[Greenback]

http://f1.racing-live.com/f1/en/head...05145035.shtml

Any idea why Indy circuit is so hard on the tyres?

[FPV GTHO]

Going through the banking the left rear's under immense pressure.

What i find weird was the soft tyres were reccomended over the hard tyres

[aj_308]

I dont think compound and construction are the same thing.
Just because they are soft compound doesn't mean the sidewalls are weak..

[FPV GTHO]

Well the tech analysis leading into Indy clearly stated the banking led to a need for hard compounds.

It just struck me that the tyres better suited were the ones with the problem

[Marbot]

Clearly Michelin's soft compound was much harder than Ferrari's (sorry ) Bridgestones hard compound.

[BootsOntheSide]

The banking provides a completely different challenge to all the other circuits. The tiny pieces of debris which are typically left on track by FIA officials too wary of stopping a race shown at peak time on European TV doesn't help either.

[Silk Cut Jaguar]

Wasn't it the resurfacing (diamond cutting?) of the oval that caught Michelin off guard? Whereas Bridgestone through Firestone already had some knowledge of what was required.

[kipper]

Originally Posted by Silk Cut Jaguar

Wasn't it the resurfacing (diamond cutting?) of the oval that caught Michelin off guard? Whereas Bridgestone through Firestone already had some knowledge of what was required.

I believe that this was very much a contributing factor to last years debacle. As has been pointed out the oval puts unusual forces on a tyre, which given that the F1 teams do not test at Indianapolis and that Rockingham and Eurospeedway Lausitz do not hold the correct accreditation for F1 testing, I would imagine that testing a number of compounds in advance to be very difficult which could be a factor in the fact the Bridgestone were a long way ahead of Michelin, who I suspect also erred on the side of caution this year with their tyre choices

Originally Posted by BootsOntheSide

The tiny pieces of debris which are typically left on track by FIA officials too wary of stopping a race shown at peak time on European TV doesn't help either.

Debris probably doesn't help but I'm not convinced that this is necessarily the fault of the FIA, given that races being stopped regardless of the timezone are a rarity these days, plus the same officials do not appear to show the same reticence for using the safety car at the Canadian Grand Prix which is also in European prime time viewing.