Grooved tyres - do they improve safety in F1 or not?

[R]

In another thread it was stated that the FIA give priority to safety instead of exciting racing, and grooved tyres is of course one of the things introduced by the governing body with the intention of improving safety.

What I wonder is: Do the grooved tyres really improve safety in F1?? Maybe they did in the beginning when speeds were reduced as a result of them being introduced. But now? Certainly the cars are up to the same speeds, if not higher, as they were before the introduction of grooved tyres. Development in F1 is never-ending, and the gap has been bridged. IMO the grooved tyres make the cars more unstable and harder to control in difficult circumstances than before. Therefore my firm belief is that grooved tyres make F1 more dangerous, not safer.

Max Mosley said when the grooved tyres were introduced: "It doesn't matter if a driver loses control as long as he doesn't hurt himself." My sentiment would be that the bigger risk a driver has of losing control, the bigger risk he also has of hurting himself.

Grooved tyres = less grip and less control = bigger risk of spinning off = bigger risk of serious accident. Bring back the slicks and F1 becomes safer. Opinions?

[LYM]

I think slicks are too soft. They might be easier to control in the initial laps, but as the race goes on, the slick tyres will pick up the debris and used rubber along the track, and slowly losing its grip.

Most of the races I have watched, the overtaking car has to tail its target for a few good laps before there 's opprtunity to overtake. Meanwhile, they would need harder, grooved tyres keep up with the car in front.

[ozywoodwards]

I think there is an issue of how fast the grooved tyres let cars stop whwn they are spinning, compared to slick tyres. Remember when MH span off at Hockinheim in '99 and despite spinning for what seemed like half the straight was stuill going at great speed into the gravel trap. I would venture that this wouldn't have happened had Mika been on slick tyres.

[Sodemo2]

Grooved tyres don't improve safety. I agree with the first poster. Grooved tyres = less grip = less safe.
Also grooved tyres = cr.ap racing

So my proposal.

Bring back super wide slicks of the 80's = cars are faster

Massivly reduce downforce by making the max number of
rear wing elements to 1, and raise the ride height by 3cm + remove wooden plank and replace with titanium one. = make the cars slower

make the cars wider = faster cars

reduce engine size to 2.6 litres for a long term reduction
= about 700-740 BHP

Ban v8's (so they have to use v-10's or v-12's)

[Valve Bounce]

The grooved tyre saga is evidence of non logical thinking in applying rules. Max contended that cars had to be made slower through corners because he showed some (obviously impressed) journalist his immense knowledge in physics. Grooved tyres were introduced to make cars go slower through corners. Unfortunately, slowing cars down by making them less stable through corners is not necessarily going to make them any safer, as the corollary is that they will run off easier. I do not really like to go the smaller engine route - we've been there and done that when F1 cars were reduced to 1.5 litres with engines producing 154 BHP. There is no easy solution. Reducing engines by 400 cc's, will only slow them down a couple of years before technology catches up on power production. Personally, I couldn't care if the cars were on slicks or grooves, because one cannot spot the difference in performance on TV's zoom lenses anyway. I think the only solution in making F1 safer is improving runoff areas to the stage where gravel traps are replaced with extensive flat bitumen areas. Cars will simply have to make a fairly large detour to get back on the circuit to impose some sort of time penalty on cars that run off. Reducing the projected frontal area of rear wings will slow cars down in corners, and this might be the better way to go.

[ozywoodwards]

But what would happen to us poor spectators if all the run-offs where huge?

We would be miles away from the track, as if we aren't further enough away allready. I think that F1 only has to keep safety at current levels as it is already very safe, and you have to have some level of danager. Whether we like it or not danger is part of what makes this sport so exciting.

One thing I would advocate, however, are higher protective fences in front of spectator banks to stop car tyres and debries going into the spectators enclosure.