FIA clarifies rule on changing flat-spotted tyres

[flemke]

The FIA has announced that in Formula One a team will be permitted to change a flat-spotted tyre without penalty.
How long before a driver whose tyres are going off (such as Schumacher in Germany) will intentionally lock his brakes, flat-spot his tyres and then come straight into the pits for fresh rubber?
I wonder if the drivers will take time in test sessions to practice the most effective ways to flat-spot tyres.

[steviebee]

flemke said:

How long before a driver whose tyres are going off (such as Schumacher in Germany) will intentionally lock his brakes, flat-spot his tyres and then come straight into the pits for fresh rubber?

Yep!

Set bias to equal on all four wheels, stand on the brakes and ...oh dear, I need new tyres!!

[FourWheelDrift]

flemke said:

I wonder if the drivers will take time in test sessions to practice the most effective ways to flat-spot tyres.

Probably by braking late just before the white line to get below the pit speed limit on entering the pits.

[RobbieMeister]

I think the clarification I read said "a" tyre, implying one.

It would take considerable determination to flat spot more than one without outside help.

But perhaps this would give Rubens a new purpose in life?

[scuffham]

absolute classic...

make a stupid rule, then add another one when it does not pan out

forget the 'Stop the Cock' campaign, how about the 'Dump the Mosley' one?

[V8 Archie]

I doubt the timing is much of an accident either... after McLaren have lost a race through flat-spots and just as Ferrari start struggling with tyre wear.

[david_s]

I think that the tyre(s) have to be changed at a pitstop where no fuel is taken on. Presumably the time taken to stop and change tyres would be too long for it to be a viable tactical choice. Schumacher lost maybe a couple of places because of his tyres going off, I think he would of lost more if he had stopped to change tyres.

Furthermore, if the rule is being abused I suspect it will be changed. At the start of the season the BAR cars deliberately failed to finish so that they could run a new engine at the next race, but I can't remember anyone doing this in subsequent races. And it didn't do BAR any good anyway.

[flemke]

david_s said:

I think that the tyre(s) have to be changed at a pitstop where no fuel is taken on. Presumably the time taken to stop and change tyres would be too long for it to be a viable tactical choice. Schumacher lost maybe a couple of places because of his tyres going off, I think he would of lost more if he had stopped to change tyres. Furthermore, if the rule is being abused I suspect it will be changed. At the start of the season the BAR cars deliberately failed to finish so that they could run a new engine at the next race, but I can't remember anyone doing this in subsequent races. And it didn't do BAR any good anyway.

No one repeated BAR's deliberate DNF because (a), the FIA had said before the season began that that tactic would be frowned upon and (b), right after that race the FIA emphasised that that tactic WOULD BE FROWNED UPON. BAR then got the message that the other teams had understood already - after all, the idea of dropping out early in order to get a fresh engine was not exactly the work of an Einstein.

As far as whether the extra, non-fueling pitstop would be worthwhile, it depends on circumstances.
First, the circuits vary in the length of their pitlanes, and it's the crawling along at 60kph, not the work at the stop itself, that costs most of the time. Hockenheim, for example, has a relatively short pitlane. IIRC, Brundle indicated that a typical pitstop there would cost something like 25 seconds.
Second, one got the sense that Mikey was losing something like 2.5 seconds/lap because of his deteriorating tyres. If so, then eleven laps on fresh rubber would have put him ahead of the game.
In addition there is the possibility of someone's having made a wrong tyre choice. With the stupid new tyre rules, you have to choose on Saturday, before qualifying, the tyre that you'll be running on Sunday. If there is a substantial change in temperature, there could also be a significant advantage to sacrificing the extra stop in order to have good tyres.

>> Edited by flemke on Friday 29th July 00:34

[LongQ]

flemke said:

the idea of dropping out early in order to get a fresh engine was not exactly the work of an Einstein.

Also as the season has progressed it seems that engine reliability s not the issue that it might have been at the start of the season and that the position you obtain in the qualifying queue for the next race might be more significant.

Reversed grids could be fun.

[rubystone]

I think the rule allows the team to change only 1 tyre that has been flat spotted. Changing just one tyre is not going to confer a significant advantage, it'll simply ensure that no components are affected by the imbalance that a flat spotted tyre causes.

Clearly, though on some circuits, one specific tyre is badly affected and I guess the driver might be able to adjust his brake bias to ensure that he successfully flat spots the damaged tyre...

I can see Massa in every other lap for a new tyre under this rule...

[V8 Archie]

david_s said:

Schumacher lost maybe a couple of places because of his tyres going off, I think he would of lost more if he had stopped to change tyres.

My point was more that with tyres in such poor condition he was locking up regularly under breaking. It's not a huge leap of imagination from there to see him flat-spotting the tyres. This rule change comes in just early enough to stop his car shaking itself to pieces in the manner that Raikkonen's did earlier in the season.

Mind you, I seem to remember that even back then he could have pitted. The reason he didn't was that he'd lose the lead during the stop.

[flemke]

rubystone said:

I think the rule allows the team to change only 1 tyre that has been flat spotted. Changing just one tyre is not going to confer a significant advantage, it'll simply ensure that no components are affected by the imbalance that a flat spotted tyre causes. Clearly, though on some circuits, one specific tyre is badly affected and I guess the driver might be able to adjust his brake bias to ensure that he successfully flat spots the damaged tyre... I can see Massa in every other lap for a new tyre under this rule...

My impression is that the new rule would allow changing any tyre that is sufficiently flat-spotted. I presume that if he monkeyed around with his brake balance, in the course of a single lap a skilled driver could manage to flat-spot all four.

[Joe911]

flemke said:

I presume that if he monkeyed around with his brake balance, in the course of a single lap a skilled driver could manage to flat-spot all four.

Surely it's the unskilled driver that can manage all four

>> Edited by Joe911 on Friday 29th July 11:47

[havoc]

From what little I've seen of F1 recently, if you set your bias to the rear and try and lock the o/s/r tyre into a tight left-hander (assuming a clockwise circuit), you could gain quite a bit...that's the tyre that does the most work, IIRC.

[flemke]

Joe911 said:

flemke said: I presume that if he monkeyed around with his brake balance, in the course of a single lap a skilled driver could manage to flat-spot all four. Surely it's the unskilled driver that can manage all four >> Edited by Joe911 on Friday 29th July 11:47

Right - whereas the truly skilled can make all four into perfect squares.

[d-man]

With track position so much more important than pace I can't see anyone abusing this.

Schumacher in the last race was vastly slower than the cars behind him and he might well have a better overall race time if he'd pitted for tyres. He'd have lost track position while in the pits though and come out lower down the order. Staying out, he is in front of those cars even though he is much slower than they are.

It is so hard to pass that you can be several seconds a lap off the pace and maintain position easily enough. Conversely even if you gained several seconds a lap from new tyres you probably still wouldn't be able to make up the positions you lost while changing them.

[flemke]

Depends on the circuit, the pit sequences, and how far into the race you are.

[shadowfax]

Aren't F1 cars nowadays equipped with kit that gives the pit and driver, through telemetry, info from the tyres about their condition?

Does anyone know when this technology came about and which tyre company it was, alongside which team, that developed it?



>> Edited by shadowfax on Friday 5th August 23:32

[sleepezy]

Would have thought a good way of stopping this being abused is setting a maximum of 1 tyre change per stop (i.e. requiring 4 stops to change all the tyres).

Pitting to change 1 tyre would not be time efficient (unless truely flat spotted).