RE: Pirelli's Silverstone fightback

[USA64]

Were those the tires he qualified on? How were they positioned then?

VladD said:

afrochicken said:

From this thread this photo seems of relevance

jondy1 said:

lewis hamilton a couple of seconds before grand prix start

The markings suggest the tyre was on the correct way. I suppose it's possible that the tyres were intentionally marked incorrectly though.

I doubt that. Pirelli wouldn't do that in my opinion.

Pirelli have stated that the wheels being swapped is only one of the reasons for failure and that tyre pressure and camber are others. Maybe one of those was the cause of Hamilton's puncture.

[edit]I say cause, I of course mean were a factor in....[/edit]

[MGJohn]

AndrewEH1 said:

VladD said:

What about the other tyre failures apart from Hamilton?

Dick Dastardly, obviously...

Who knows. Possibly same line time and again in that bend plus camber and pressure aspects. Amazingly consistent some of these drivers are.

[anonymous-user]

Inertiatic said:

REALIST123 said:

jsf said:

The teams have a tyre engineer assigned to them by Pirreli, they knew exactly what the teams were doing and co-operated with them in mounting the tyres backwards, they also gained data and gave feedback from all the tyre running that occurs on track. That is the role of the tyre technician. If there was any doubt about the cambers and pressures and mounting techniques, Pirreli knew they were risking the tyre safety and should have stopped what they were doing.

It shouldn't take a series of failures to prompt a tightening of the running conditions, they knew they were marginal and should not have allowed it to happen. It's a ridiculous situation to allow the teams to run a safety critical product so close to failure and in conditions that they knew were not designed for.

With regards to mounting techniques, having race tyres directional and load specific is nothing new. Take a look at something like an Avon slick, you mount the tyre based on the load path, on a RWD car like an F1 car you run the front and rear tyres in the opposite direction to each other, on a FWD you do the same, but with the tyres reversed compared to a RWD, on a 4WD you run them the same direction front/rear.

X is the tyre batch number embossed on the sidewall to use as reference.

RWD


FWD


AWD

This is all true but the Avon tyres don't fail if you ignore this information. In fact, as far as I am aware with an F3 car, there are no significant effects.

That doesn't really mean anything though. Are Avon tyres designed to be marginal? Are they run with F1 car levels of downforce? It's not a direct comparison. I'm pretty sure any asymmetrical, directional road tyres I put on my car wont fail at Silverstone no matter how I install them, but that doesn't support or negate anything.

It means that the manufacturers advice isn't always imperative. And F1 tyres aren't designed to be marginal over 7 laps, in any case. Especially, as we now know, when fitted correctly. And your road tyre analogy is irrelevant, ey are asymmetric or directional for entirely different reasons.

Amazing how a PR smokescreen has got us all talking like this.

[anonymous-user]

REALIST123 said:

This is all true but the Avon tyres don't fail if you ignore this information. In fact, as far as I am aware with an F3 car, there are no significant effects.

Once they have been through a heat cycle you have less chance of issues if you reverse them. The info was just to illustrate to people it's not unusual to have directional slicks with the direction determined by the load direction experienced. We do use Avon's on F1 cars, including Ground Effect cars, but the loads are well down on current F1 cars, again, nothing is implied in using Avon as a reference.

Someone mentioned current F1 cars have no suspension travel and it's all in the tyres now, sorry but that's very wrong. One of the easiest places to see how much the suspension moves is the beckets complex at Silverstone, watch the on-board, the front suspension angles change significantly as it cycles through the series of corners. If you stand behind the cars there it's seriously impressive how much they roll during the change of direction.

[MGJohn]

Safety Cars or yellows are deployed when broken car debris is on the track.

Hitting those sharp raised edges lap after lap would have a similar effect as a small piece of broken car damage would at speed.

[anonymous-user]

If you are referring to the kerbs at Silverstone, they are nothing special, any tyre should be able to cope with those and do cope with those, week in week out.

[egor110]

Not sure if you can inlarge the picture, but just below the kimi logo is a god save our tyres sticker.

[Mikey G]

Looks like #godsaveourtyres
Maybe we need to get it trending

Edited by Mikey G on Thursday 4th July 22:11

[Agent Orange]

jsf said:

having race tyres directional and load specific is nothing new.

RWD

Interesting I never knew that. Might be a stupid question but if tyres are load specific doesn't that make them behave oddly acceleration out of corners? Wouldn't one side wall deform more than the other and therefore upset the balance?

[greygoose]

DE15 CAT said:

Yes agree that harsh words should be spoken by Hamilton if correct, but still maintain he makes ill informed outbursts in the heat of the moment. Also agree about Mercedes job, but he critised Pirelli not Merc..

I would rather have someone who says what he thinks, even if it is occasionally intemperate, rather than the corporate drones who say nothing in their press conferences.

[Emeye]

Monty Zoomer said:

Scuffers said:

Emeye said:

I expected all this after hearing the teams telling the drivers they were increasing the tyre pressures during the race "as a precaution" and then listening to Ross Brawn's guarded response to Hamilton's stroppy out-burst.

really?

I actually thought it was mostly justified

Me too.

It's good to see him saying what he actually thinks for a change.

Ok, so maybe I was being a bit harsh on Hamilton - I was just trying to highlight the different attitude in the responses from Hamilton and Brawn.

Hamilton was blaming Pirelli, Brawn said we'd have to see the data suggesting it wasn't that clear cut. Maybe Hamilton should have been considering how the team had been managing the tyres?

It is interesting though that Jenson Button has come out and said that McLaren ran their tyres at Silverstone exactly within Pirelli's recommended parameters.

Can McLaren prove this though? I guess this is why Pirelli want access to all tyre related during the race.

[Agent Orange]

Emeye said:

It is interesting though that Jenson Button has come out and said that McLaren ran their tyres at Silverstone exactly within Pirelli's recommended parameters.

Does that mean McLaren aren't slow this year? Just running within the Pirelli recommendations and therefore at the maximum performance Pirelli anticipated.

Whereas the other teams are pushing the tyres beyond the parameters recommended by Pirelli and therefore gaining an advantage?

[Emeye]

Agent Orange said:

Emeye said:

It is interesting though that Jenson Button has come out and said that McLaren ran their tyres at Silverstone exactly within Pirelli's recommended parameters.

Does that mean McLaren aren't slow this year? Just running within the Pirelli recommendations and therefore at the maximum performance Pirelli anticipated.

Whereas the other teams are pushing the tyres beyond the parameters recommended by Pirelli and therefore gaining an advantage?

But Perez had a blow out or two didn't he?

Edited by Emeye on Friday 5th July 15:56

[woof]

Agent Orange said:

Emeye said:

It is interesting though that Jenson Button has come out and said that McLaren ran their tyres at Silverstone exactly within Pirelli's recommended parameters.

Does that mean McLaren aren't slow this year? Just running within the Pirelli recommendations and therefore at the maximum performance Pirelli anticipated.

Whereas the other teams are pushing the tyres beyond the parameters recommended by Pirelli and therefore gaining an advantage?

Sam Michael confirmed in an interview this morning that they were running them swapped over - left to right.

[Emeye]

woof said:

Agent Orange said:

Emeye said:

It is interesting though that Jenson Button has come out and said that McLaren ran their tyres at Silverstone exactly within Pirelli's recommended parameters.

Does that mean McLaren aren't slow this year? Just running within the Pirelli recommendations and therefore at the maximum performance Pirelli anticipated.

Whereas the other teams are pushing the tyres beyond the parameters recommended by Pirelli and therefore gaining an advantage?

Sam Michael confirmed in an interview this morning that they were running them swapped over - left to right.

Looks like McLaren have a communication issue then? May explain a few things.

[DE15 CAT]

greygoose said:

DE15 CAT said:

Yes agree that harsh words should be spoken by Hamilton if correct, but still maintain he makes ill informed outbursts in the heat of the moment. Also agree about Mercedes job, but he critised Pirelli not Merc..

I would rather have someone who says what he thinks, even if it is occasionally intemperate, rather than the corporate drones who say nothing in their press conferences.

Yes saying what you think can make good television. You have to admit in the context of this debate where posters on here have simply blamed the tyres & used Hamiltons heat of the moment comment as proof, its not that clear cut (no pun intended).

[designndrive62]

egor110 said:

Not sure if you can inlarge the picture, but just below the kimi logo is a god save our tyres sticker.

Fantastic. Nice to see someone in f1 has a sense of humour! Either that or it's just Kimi!

[egor110]

designndrive62 said:

Fantastic. Nice to see someone in f1 has a sense of humour! Either that or it's just Kimi!

That was from friday free practice 1 though, wasn't that before perez had his 1st blow out?

[MGJohn]

DE15 CAT said:

greygoose said:

DE15 CAT said:

Yes agree that harsh words should be spoken by Hamilton if correct, but still maintain he makes ill informed outbursts in the heat of the moment. Also agree about Mercedes job, but he critised Pirelli not Merc..

I would rather have someone who says what he thinks, even if it is occasionally intemperate, rather than the corporate drones who say nothing in their press conferences.

Yes saying what you think can make good television. You have to admit in the context of this debate where posters on here have simply blamed the tyres & used Hamiltons heat of the moment comment as proof, its not that clear cut (no pun intended).

Good grief! Someone sees things the way I do.

Praise be! ...

[TheExcession]

STiG911 said:

Maybe I'm confused, but if the tyres are constructed to deal with specific loads in specific directions, it shouldn't matter which way the tyre is actually rotating. the main torsional load applied to a tyre in motion on an F1 car is surely to the left and right as the car bounces over the kerbs
I can't see a way for a slick tyre to be 'loaded' to resist forces in one rotational direction only, which is why the teams were swapping tyres from one side to the other to try and even out wear rates (which is entirely reasonable in my mind and something which can be done on road cars anyway)

Many many years back during my motorcycling days, Pirelli 'Demon' tyres at the time were available to fit either the front or the rear. You changed the direction of rotation accordingly. Stresses at the rear are predominantly under acceleration, stresses at the front predominantly under braking, you flipped the tyre accordingly.