Michelin 2004.

[Adam43]

This time last year Michelin had the tyre and Bridgestone could only help the best team and driver to eighth in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Wet weather aside (and even more aside the reg. clarification, call it what you will) Michelin still seemed to have a great tyre until the end of the year. Maybe the best tyre until then. Over winter testing it was all Michelin, Ferrari were supposed to be nowhere. Then the final Imola test brings together two lines of development at Bridgestone and great strides have been made.

This year at Hungary the Bridgestone looks the tyre to have. The Saubers perform well at Hungary. Bridgestone apparently made another step forward recently too and we saw it.

Michelin are not happy bunnies. Alonso said some fairly uncontroversial and probably correct things about the tyres and it didn't go down to well with the Dupasquier. Alonso said that they were behind in most the races from a tyre point of view. I think this is particularly true with Renault.

So can Michelin do what Bridgestone did last year and turn it around?
Are the Michelin's off the pace of the Bridgestone's?

Perhaps Michelin has been a little unlucky with the weather? They were obviously expecting much hotter weather in Hungary. It was a little hotter on race day, but too late for some. This luck has shown itself a couple of times earlier in the year too, but we have had hot races too. Also around Monaco time there was talk that Bridgestone was really pushing because they were worried that Michelin were close, if not better.

It also strikes me that some teams suffer with the general rear tyre wear and graining*. Jaguar, Renault and to a lesser degree Williams seem to suffer more than BAR.

Are there any circuits that suit one tyre manufacturer more than another, or is mainly weather?

*graining. According to Blundell after an inane question, graining is when the tyres grain.

[Knowlesy]

Last year Adam it was the circuits with slow speed corners that suited the Michelins down to the ground in particular. They also gained significant amounts of time over areas of track like the Veedol Schikane.

Bridgestone were good through the high speed bits.

From the weather point, it was hot weather for Michelin and cool for Bridgestone.

This year, what can you say? Bridgestone don't seem to be deficient in any area and that is what seperates Ferrari from the others mainly.

[Mike_Wooshy]

Maybe Michelin are behind as they have to make a tyre for MOST of the top teams, each which are diffrent and this is the best comprimise Michelin can make fore all the teams ? As Bridgestone pretty much make them for Ferrari, (they share data etc etc close realationship) and with Sauber using pretty much last years ferrari.

[Knowlesy]

Didn't stop them last year.....

[Raven]

Bridgestone have made a lot of progress, but I think Ferrari have as well. Last year in Hungary, IIRC, MS only finished something like 20 seconds ahead of Heidfeld in the Sauber.

[Knowlesy]

Yep, perhaps the shorter wheelbase is a benefit to the Bridgestones workability.

[Gt_R]

It wouldn't surprise me if Michelin make a larger jump than BS.

When a team/manufacturer is behind their rival, they would estimate a "projected" improvement their rival would/could make over the winter and work double as hard to match that "projected" improvement..provided they have the resources. The team in front, should they just let down a bit and underestimate their rivals improvement, would be left to play catch up.

It's not a matter of number of top teams. Having more top teams would give Michelin more valuable data (tyre testing data from Jordan/Minardi is limited and less useful than top teams), and a greater scope/capability to run more testing.

Michelin had shown last season that it isn't a handicap, and if so, why did they take part in other form of racing too?

Don't underestimate Michelin. There are times and tracks where their tyres are a match for BS, it's just that circumstances didn't allow the tires to shine.

[RWC]

Bridgestone were totally asleep last year because of the utter dominance of the year before.That's the only reason michy hammered them in certain conditions.

Now that it's back to business as usual (i.e putting the whole effort behind the best driver),michelin haven't got a hope.

The only thing that will bring consistant wins for michelin are a combination of massive effort/$ *PLUS* one of the top teams getting their act together for a whole season

[esorniloc]

Could any of the top Michelin teams (Williams, McLaren or Renault) be looking to change to Bridgestone?

[climb]

If Michelin did catch up last year, they surely can do it in the future.
Of course environmental factors can make a difference look larger or thinner, for instance last year's hottest summer ever magnified Michelin's dominance, whereas this year's cool summer did the opposite.

However it's undisputable that Alonso's whining is not unreasonable.

[Kicking-back]

I wouldn't call it whining.

It was a statement of facts - and not a particularly controversial one at that.

If anyone's whining it's Pierre Dupasquier.

[pole2pole]

Its about time that someone(Alonso) spoke out on camera about the performance of the michelin's maybe this way something will be done about it. I dont know about the rest of you but I am completely fed up with this tyre advantage/disadvantage issue. Make it a one make tyre formula and lets see some racing

[minimangler]

if the bridgestones are so good how come the sauber isnt?
i know its last years ferrari but its updated and has this years tyres!

[Glen]

If Ferrari could have got the three seconds per lap out of last year's car without developing a totally new one they presumably would have done. In other words, if Sauber start with exactly the car ferrai had in Suzuka 2003 they then need to find more speed in it than Ferrari themselves had mangaed to extract - a pretty tall order.

Michelin are going to struggle even more I reckon if the new tyres regulations go through (one set only for the race). The big pro with the Michelin technology is very good first few lap performance, whereas the Bridgestones major on consistency over the whole stint. I know which manufacturer I would bet on to make a single tyre for the whole race.

[006_007]

Originally posted by esorniloc
Could any of the top Michelin teams (Williams, McLaren or Renault) be looking to change to Bridgestone?

I think it would be highly unlikely that any of the top teams will switch over to Bridgestone as the rumors are they build tires strictly for Ferrari, and the remainder of their teams use those tires. Wasnt that part of the reason McLaren switched to Michelin was because more tech feedback was going to Ferrari?

[Sodemo]

I think the Bridgestone tyres flatter the Ferrari totally. I doubt that Ferrari is leagues ahead of Williams, McLaren, Renault, BAR.

Michelin have really underperformed badly all year, in particular after the first few races - the gap has got bigger.

[Knowlesy]

Originally posted by minimangler
if the bridgestones are so good how come the sauber isnt?
i know its last years ferrari but its updated and has this years tyres!

Well, it isn't last years Ferrari really is it?

And the Bridgestones are tailor made for Ferrari. Other Bridgestone teams have to make do with the same. It's a pretty dire situation, albeit rather successful for Bridgestone and Ferrari.

[grumpy1]

Given all the replies it is clear everyone knows that Ferrari/Bridgestone are a partnership and anyone else has to use the same product.This is not against the rules so like it or find another supplier.Sauber have had talks with Michelin about supply for next season.That aside the following is true.
One set of tyres a weekend rule(if adopted)was the idea of Mr Michelin.Given Michelin came up with the idea one would expect that they have a package that will work well.
Given some of the noise from the team principles I think we will find it becomes 2 sets per event.This of course was aimed at lowering the cost to the teams on the surface but given Michelins influence it is more than likely also aimed at taking back the advantage.
As for the lowering of cost the bigger teams (Ferrari,Williams/BMW etc)will have Original equipment deals with these teams (ie BMW)for supply to the production cars so therefore the cost is nil to the race team.The smaller teams (Minardi/Jordan/SauberandBAR)pay for there tyres so they will see some savings.
As for the overall cost to F1 until the rules on testing are changed we always have the current situation.The bigger budget teams have always had the advantage here.The other point here is that if you test at 2 different tracks on the same day it syill counts as 1 test day.A fact that Ferrari have exploited to there advantage.No gripes about that here as I say good on them for finding the loop hole in the rules.The thing that surprises me about it is the likes of McLaren and Williams haven't exploited it as well.
Anyway the point of all this is Michelin have never backed away from a fight and I doubt they will now.

The Grumpy1

[DKGandBH]

Originally posted by grumpy1
Given all the replies it is clear everyone knows that Anyway the point of all this is Michelin have never backed away from a fight and I doubt they will now.

The Grumpy1

Yes they have...
When they left F1 years ago... ;-)

David