Control tyres - a year on.

[Super Tourer]

Back in late October 2003 we ran a 10 Tenths poll on control tyres v tyre war. The vote came out 64% in favour of a tyre war continuing, with 36% favouring a move to control tyres.

Tucked away in a report on www.grandprix.com was the statement that nine out of the ten teams now favour a move to control tyres as soon as possible, this apparently was the feeling at Brazil.

The interesting thing is that in Brazil nine of the 10 teams said they wanted control tyres as soon as possible but Mosley's decision to cancel the F1 Commission planned for the start of December means that the tyre chance is unlikely to happy before January 1 2007

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns14023.html

Plenty of water will have flowed under the bridge by 2007, so the above feeling is probably less relevant than it might appear.

But the question is with the move to harder tyres and the removal of tyre stops from the race equation, would you still vote to maintain the tyre war, switch to control tyres or vote for a wait and see how the cars perform under the 2005 regs?

[Kicking-back]

Control tyre for me.

The tyre is the biggest single factor influencing lap time - and the easiest way to manage that is for everyone to be on the same tyres.

[Glen]

Purely because of the extreme amount of testing time and money that would be saved I think it has to go the control tyre route. I certainly would not necessarily expect closer racing as a consequence though - my view is that Ferrari's advantage would be as great if not greater if the tyres were the same.

[Red]

The engine and chassis are no negligible factor too. I'd say control everything and call it "Formula Communism But What A Show Would It Be".

[Adam43]

All the cars are so similar that overtaking would be totally removed (just for you, that one, red).

I think it should allow different tyre manufacturers. It is all about the overall competition. Eveything against everything else.

[Marbot]

The trouble with "overall competition" is it's difficult to know which part of the car actually won the race!

[ralf fan]

Hmmm... with this new rule of no tyre stops for the entire race... id have to say control tyres. If say either Michelin or BS fail to meet the demands of the new rules and then with the limitation on testing days... the season would be a disaster for the team using the tyre companies... with spins and punctures etc. while in 2003 where the tyre war made the season competitive the teams could atleast switch their sets of tyres and score a few points.
the limitation on testing then would mean that the companies would not have the required time to improve...

hence with the control tyre route... a disadvantage for one team would be a disadvantage to all...

[Marbot]

Now if each team ran both cars on different makes of tyres,i could go with that.

[Red]

Originally Posted by martyn bott

The trouble with "overall competition" is it's difficult to know which part of the car actually won the race!

That's not trouble. Actually, that's precisely why F1 is not "Formula <whatever make>"

[Marbot]

So if Bridgestones tyres are 2 seconds a lap faster than Michelins that'll be allright then.

[Raglanparade]

Why cant they just let as many cars, tyres, engines etc into f1... with variety comes passing..

All of the teams are at the GP circuits on the Thursday.. They should run thursday and friday as testing days each GP, and friday and saturday as competitive days...

Put a total ban on testing other then that.. except for two weekends before the seasons start to shake down the new models...

any floors with that model ?

[Gabrio]

Control tyres are a lower limit which should not be introduced to F1. Furthermore I do not think it would be right to eliminate a tyre producer ( and potentially others ) from the top category of motorsport. FIA would just have to introduce a rule by which every car is allowed two sets of tyres for the week-end. That would slow down speeds and decrease costs without introducing discrimination.

[Marbot]

The FIA have introduced that rule for next season.

[Red]

Originally Posted by martyn bott

So if Bridgestones tyres are 2 seconds a lap faster than Michelins that'll be allright then.

Sure, why not? That'll either push Michelins to close the gap, leave them without customers or simply push them away. And there it goes your control tyre, but it comes naturally, not because Max wants to increase entertainment.

[Gabrio]

Originally Posted by martyn bott

The FIA have introduced that rule for next season.

Right Then they could even push that further to one or two sets per week-end. But I would not exclude any manifacturer from F1.

[frostblade]

The advantage I can see with a control tyre is that it would give the FIA more say over the characteristics of the tyre. Obviously at the moment, the fastest way to drive is to stop the car sliding. Tyres are built to last a specific distance, and consistant sliding would vastly reduce the distance they can go.

If we had a control tyre then the FIA could work with the tyre manufacturer to make the cars more challenging to drive. Sliding could come back and F1 would be spectacular to watch. It would be more driver orientated.

I'm not sure I'm quite with the people who like variety of the tyre war - so the winner is determined by what tyres he has on his car rather than the skill of the driver or the team? How is that fair?

[Red]

Originally Posted by frostblade

[...]so the winner is determined by what tyres he has on his car rather than the skill of the driver or the team? How is that fair?

It is to my understanding that neither FIA nor whatever deity do impose teams/drivers what tyres shall they use next year. If they chose to use loser tyres, then it's their problem and they should deal with it. I can't see anything that's not fair in this.

[frostblade]

Teams can't change tyres at the drop of a hat though, and there are limits to supply. Remember last autumn when Michelin looked about 2s quicker per lap than Bridgestones?

[Marbot]

So Michelin turn up at Melbourne with an absolute dog of a tyre(but which looked good in testing-Ferrari sandbagging)and straight away it's a one horse race with perhaps Jordan and Minardi providing some entertainment,Williams et al have obviously spent vast sums of money on what are(hopefully) theoretically better cars than Ferrari only to be thwarted by inadequate rubber,o.k. so Michelin have to pull their finger out but Bridgestone are ahead of the game and so it goes on,Ferrari to the casual eye have the better car though it may not be the case and we can console ourselves with the midfield battle.
In short i'd like the constructors championship to be won by a car and the drivers championship by a driver.There is no tyre constructors championship nor should there be.Please note Bridgestone may also turn up at Melbourne with a dog of a tyre.

[Kirk]

Well stated Martyn. My thoughts from another post are:
..... But perhaps much of this test debate would be rectified by having a single tyre manufacturer in F1. It would make sense particularly now as the tyre situation has been compounded (pardon the pun) by the need for the harder tyre in '05. This is a large challenge for all concerned and I'm afraid that in the upcoming year, the tyres may just play too large a role in determining the fate of the top teams. The gap in performance between tyre manufactures has been for the most part relatively insignificant, but that gap potentially may widen in '05. Obviously it is too late to implement anything in '05 along those lines, so I hope I'm wrong about that.

[BootsOntheSide]

It's an interesting one. Bridgestone have (other than a few motnhs in 2003) had the best tyres throughout the current 'war', yet teams are flocking to Mcihelin? Is the Ferrari really that much better, consdiering how far off the pace Minardi and Jordan have been? Or do Bridgestone favour Ferrari so much in terms of testing time and tyre development strategy that no other team can get anything out of Bridgestones?

Would a control tyre produce closer racing? Depends on which tyre really is better, and that's open to debate. Races like Brazil and Indy 2003 wouldn't be the same without the variation in tyre qualities, but changable or extreme weather always produces great racing whatever the circumstances.

Would it produce the right winner more often (be that Ferrari or otherwise)? Yes - tyres are a peripheral product that shouldn't be the most important factor in a team's success, and a lot fo races are certainly swung purely by the tyres.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by martyn bott

So Michelin turn up at Melbourne with an absolute dog of a tyre...

Yeah, you are getting the idea, from my point of view . (as you say later) Or maybe they'll be evenly matched. Or maybe Michelin will turn up with a fantastic tyre. Its down to them.

If someone (driver, team (or part of tyres, engines or whatever) does much better than the others then why shouldn't it be possible to win lots of races?

Originally Posted by martyn bott

In short i'd like the constructors championship to be won by a car and the drivers championship by a driver.There is no tyre constructors championship nor should there be.

The tyres are part of the car, why aren't they?

Someone does a better job than someone else the reasoning should then not be "it's not fair let's eliminate the difference". I'm with red on this one.
We all complain that F1 is not like the old days, but these are not the things that are different.

[shiny side up!]

Frankly, I'm suprised that Bernie hasn't attempted this little compromise to acheive a control tire AND keep multiple tire manufacturers in F1: Contract a tire company to produce 'brandless' tires for F1, and then sell the tire branding for each team seperately, and bring in a -ton of money for himself (or for the teams if there was any justice in the world... )

Personally, I would rather see multiple tire manufacturers battling it out, the more the merrier. Why not have as many tire companies as engine manufacturers? Or even as many as we have constructors? The key to the whole thing is the 'formula' (rules). Right now, tires are pretty open... the grooves and geometries have max/min values, but there is no control of compounds. Maybe that could be equated to engine rules specifying a number of cylinders and a displacement, but not limiting the materials or the induction system??? Anyway, the FIA could impose rules on compounds (nigh on impossible, though) or rules like # of sets in a weekend (sounds familiar) or even minimum durometer reading and seriously retard the ever-escalating tech war in tyres...

[Snrub]

If the question is asked without context, tire war or no tire war, I'd take no tire war. However, the current state of the F1 tire war is that they're pretty close so it's not grossly effecting performance. The testing and costs is the only current downside. I think I'm okay with the current tire war.

With all the poor situations in the last while I can't understand why so many people want technolgical competition over driver competition. Frankly that's boring, you don't need to watch that, you can read about it. If it wasn't for the great competition behind Ferrari in 2004, people would be very upset right now. Maybe it's because you've never watched a series where there was thick competition, but I can promise you that it's MUCH more interesting.

[Gt_R]

Quote:" i'd like the constructors championship to be won by a car and the drivers championship by a driver"

OH yeah MB..i agree with you man..that's why it makes 2003 such a bloody fair result! Thankfully Ferrari and Michael are still strong enough to overcome the tyre deficit.

The chances of who comes out ahead of the tyre war are pretty much balanced, if not in Michelin's favour. In fact, Michelin have pretty much an equal, if not better tyres compared to Bridgestone for most of this season especially in the latter half. Michelin insisted just as much. Sometimes, the real situation of the bridgestones are masked by the strength of the Ferrari. Sometimes the tyres are good, sometimes not. BAR and Sauber both claim Michelins improve their times.

But who can complain? Ferrari chose to work with Bridgestone's. And what is more appreciated at Bridgestone is also Ferrari's way of working. They don't ditch Bridgestone when it performs badly, but rather work harder to overcome it. Do you see Ferrari tossing stones at Bridgestone and see Bridgestone pouting?

Then look again at Michelin...always defensive over their tyres, and putting the blame of not winning on the feet of the teams' incompetence. The potential is there for Michelin to do a good job and whoop BS's aass but unfortunately, they seem more interested to come out looking fresh in a PR catfight.