RE: Pirelli's Silverstone fightback

[anonymous-user]

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.

[Scuffers]

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

[Monty Zoomer]

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.

[Janesy B]

He could have won his home GP if it wasn't for the failure so he has every right to be 'stroppy'.

[DE15 CAT]

VladD said:

Agent Orange said:

Pirelli said:

A SERIES OF DIFFERENT CAUSES LED TO THE TYRE FAILURES AT SILVERSTONE: REAR TYRES MOUNTED THE WRONG WAY ROUND, LOW TYRE PRESSURES, EXTREME CAMBERS AND HIGH KERBS

THE 2013 TYRES DO NOT COMPROMISE SAFETY IF USED IN THE CORRECT WAY

Given Mercedes were one of the teams to suffer a blow out doesn't this suggest they learnt or gained very little knowledge personally from the 1000KM test therefore the FIA ruling against them should be re-examined?

Hamilton implied in an interview after the race that the tyres used during the test were completely different to the ones used at Silverstone.

What Ive read, it appears Pirelli are blocked by someone every time they mention changing tyre construction (many in season changes have to be agreed unanimously, one team objects no change) As for Hamilton he is prone to unprofessional ill informed outbursts, but what can you expect from someone who lives in the hollywood 'your wonderful darling' environment, with showbiz management. If he doesn't change his ways soon expect on retirement the 'great wasted talent only 1 world title' type of biography on the bookshelves.

[GreigM]

DE15 CAT said:

As for Hamilton he is prone to unprofessional ill informed outbursts, but what can you expect from someone who lives in the hollywood 'your wonderful darling' environment, with showbiz management. If he doesn't change his ways soon expect on retirement the 'great wasted talent only 1 world title' type of biography on the bookshelves.

On the other hand if this blow-out causes Hamilton to lose the championship, then what does it cost him over the course of his career? £10M? £100M?

There is a lot of money at stake, Hamilton and Mercedes aren't a "team", they are business partners, and if one part of the partnership costs the other many millions then harsh words should be said. Its mercedes job to manage the tyres and provide a car capable of using those tyres, they failed in their side of the deal.

[Inertiatic]

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.

[DE15 CAT]

GreigM said:

DE15 CAT said:

As for Hamilton he is prone to unprofessional ill informed outbursts, but what can you expect from someone who lives in the hollywood 'your wonderful darling' environment, with showbiz management. If he doesn't change his ways soon expect on retirement the 'great wasted talent only 1 world title' type of biography on the bookshelves.

On the other hand if this blow-out causes Hamilton to lose the championship, then what does it cost him over the course of his career? £10M? £100M?

There is a lot of money at stake, Hamilton and Mercedes aren't a "team", they are business partners, and if one part of the partnership costs the other many millions then harsh words should be said. Its mercedes job to manage the tyres and provide a car capable of using those tyres, they failed in their side of the deal.

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..

[airbusA346]

Agent Orange said:

Yep. Lotus, Red Bull and Ferrari rejected the proposals to introduce the new tyres for Silverstone.

It was Force India, not Red Bull.

[spitsfire]

I get the impression that the FIA, the teams and Pirelli have all contributed to this issue (in that order), but as the governing body, it's the FIA who are ultimately responsible for it.

Whilst I don't think it reflects badly on Pirelli as much as it does on the others (hearing the teams bump their gums about the tyres being 'dangerous' when they're not using them as intended is particularly irritating), it still doesn't show anybody in a particularly good light.

That said, it did make Silverstone a far more interesting race to watch.....

[coanda]

VladD said:

I'm probably going to make this worse but....

Silverstone is a clockwise circuit.

Therefore most of the cornering will be round right handers.

Therefore there will be load on the left hand side of each tyre more than on the righthand side over each lap.

If you therefore need to reinforce a tyre to cope with this, you would reinforce the left hand side of the left rear (the outside) and the left hand side of the right rear (the inside).

If you then swap those tyres round, you have the strong bit where the weak bit should be and vice versa.

Is that not what they are saying?

I think you have this correct. This would be an attempt to get a consistent mileage and wear between left and right without giving the teams too much of an opportunity to re-use the tyres to gain extra mileage. If each tyre had the same construction on the inner and outer walls (considering you'd have to make both walls safe for the higher load condition) you would be able to get approaching double the mileage (or conversely a higher grip for longer) by swapping left for right or vice versa. This to me suggests its more about hitting the 'performance' criteria than anything else, altho i suppose that there might be a small weight advantage with assymetric construction.

[MGJohn]

pagani1 said:

Pirelli are the innocents in all of this! The F1 teams needed to vote unanimously to change back to Kevlar construction and Lotus and Force India voted no! The FIA in the guise of Jean Dodo have been asleep at the wheel as I said previously. Drivers are on the kerbs, off the circuit into rougher run off areas and there is one corner at Silverstone where there seems to be a distinct step in the concrete and is covered in tyre rubber. The trouble with the current situation is "the show" was perceived as getting boring with Red Bull running away so changing the tyres to have less reliability was a deliberate step that F1 took and the teams supported that. Now the tyres failure can't possibly be their fault, running marginal pressures, aggressive cambers, and swapping tyres to the opposite sides of the axle to try and generate another advantage as some teams believed this lessened graining, but all outside of the manufacturers recommendations-so Pirelli are NOT to blame. The teams as usual are not saying a lot because they know what they have been doing is risky and it's the drivers who are having to take the risks ..with their lives. As usual it will probably be Bernie who bangs heads together and sorts it. Thank God he hasn't retired yet.

A lot of good food for thought there. Thanks for posting.

I had my second largest bet of the season on Hamilton for the win last week so maybe I'm talking only through my wallet. However, I still have a nagging doubt that Hamilton's tyre 'failure' was not the sole reason for his unfortunate DNF. It could well have been partially self-inflicted. Subsequent information has emerged has given me a different perspective on what really happened. The real cause could be that the blame should be shared with both driver and team and not simply down to tyres alone.

I doubt it will ever be fully explained in the public domain simply on a "need to know" basis for all the parties involved.

[mycool]

He finished 4th though?

And what other reasons....do tell

[AndrewEH1]

mycool said:

He finished 4th though?

And what other reasons....do tell

He can't.

Sadly he's already been detained by the Gestapo.

[Woody]

AndrewEH1 said:

mycool said:

He finished 4th though?

And what other reasons....do tell

He can't.

Sadly he's already been detained by the Gestapo.

He'd got the bass turned up too high on the stereo and the balance set wrong - bass vibrations caused his blow out........


I'll get my coat......

[Disastrous]

MGJohn said:

Subsequent information has emerged has given me a different perspective on what really happened. The real cause could be that the blame should be shared with both driver and team and not simply down to tyres alone.

I doubt it will ever be fully explained in the public domain simply on a "need to know" basis for all the parties involved.

Very mysterious. I appreciate you wouldn't want to put your source's life in jeopardy but would you be able to elaborate on what information you've seen etc? I'd be interested to see what's gone un-reported...

[VladD]

MGJohn said:

pagani1 said:

Pirelli are the innocents in all of this! The F1 teams needed to vote unanimously to change back to Kevlar construction and Lotus and Force India voted no! The FIA in the guise of Jean Dodo have been asleep at the wheel as I said previously. Drivers are on the kerbs, off the circuit into rougher run off areas and there is one corner at Silverstone where there seems to be a distinct step in the concrete and is covered in tyre rubber. The trouble with the current situation is "the show" was perceived as getting boring with Red Bull running away so changing the tyres to have less reliability was a deliberate step that F1 took and the teams supported that. Now the tyres failure can't possibly be their fault, running marginal pressures, aggressive cambers, and swapping tyres to the opposite sides of the axle to try and generate another advantage as some teams believed this lessened graining, but all outside of the manufacturers recommendations-so Pirelli are NOT to blame. The teams as usual are not saying a lot because they know what they have been doing is risky and it's the drivers who are having to take the risks ..with their lives. As usual it will probably be Bernie who bangs heads together and sorts it. Thank God he hasn't retired yet.

A lot of good food for thought there. Thanks for posting.

I had my second largest bet of the season on Hamilton for the win last week so maybe I'm talking only through my wallet. However, I still have a nagging doubt that Hamilton's tyre 'failure' was not the sole reason for his unfortunate DNF. It could well have been partially self-inflicted. Subsequent information has emerged has given me a different perspective on what really happened. The real cause could be that the blame should be shared with both driver and team and not simply down to tyres alone.

I doubt it will ever be fully explained in the public domain simply on a "need to know" basis for all the parties involved.

What about the other tyre failures apart from Hamilton?

[AndrewEH1]

VladD said:

What about the other tyre failures apart from Hamilton?

Dick Dastardly, obviously...

[afrochicken]

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.

[VladD]

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]