Tyre wear warning for driver or pit crew

[shadowfax]

Am I correct in thinking that there is a facility for pit crews to be able to see by telemetry just how much tyre is left on a car while it is still racing, so they can judge the latest time to change before a burst or reduced efficiency?

If so, does anyone know who it was who developed it, and with which team and when this came to be, please?

>> Edited by shadowfax on Monday 5th December 18:13

[anonymous-user]

never heard of such a thing and to be honest i cant see how this could be accurate. Tyre wear is dependant upon so many factors that can not be measured such as lock ups or running over debris. You could measure how much tread a tyre has by working out the distance and the pressure forced upon it through acceleration and deceleration but only on a very basic scale and it would not take into acccount heavier braking than the average over a certain number of corners/lap.

would have been useful for Mclaren this season though....

[shadowfax]

Hmmm, I am indeed going slightly madder, then. Sure I heard reference by commentators in the last year to such monitoring going on and drivers being called in cos their tyres were on the limit. Thanks anyway

[GreenV8S]

Only way I can see that happening is by a visual inspection of the tread depth on treaded tyres as the car drives past. Not exactly a high tech solution.

[shadowfax]

[IP-Racing]

They may be able to tell what state of ware there tyre is in by the temps the tyres are running at etc.
But the main scource for a tyre ware indicator is the driver i still think as he is the only person who can tell how much grip is avalible.

[racefan_uk]

The way its done is that the driver comes on the pit to car radio and says "The tyres are ed!"

On a single seater you can see if the tyre is blistered or starting to scrub in certain places. On a saloon or GT car the only way to tell would be that the level of grip has started to go (driver would tell the team) or the engineers/tyre bods will inspect the depth markers on the tyres to see how much wear is left.

[hammerwerfer]

Back in the 50s in the Carrera Pan American or some similar race the co-driver would open a little hatch in the footwell so he could see the front tyre. He would use a strobe light to "freeze" the motion and check out the tread wear that way.

[shadowfax]

Love that strobe thingy. But I rang Goodyear's company secretary Paul Parker back in 1991 with my idea and he told me to write to Tony Shakespeare in their racing division, which I did in September that year, to outline it further. The idea came to me after seeing Nigel Mansell pulling his tripe out to win the title, which he did the following year.

I was rooting through my old paperwork the other day and found a copy of my letter. Handwritten & spidery. They must've pissed themselves

At the time, I indicated that " with the sort of technology around, surely you could gauge the depth of tyre tread on the move? (I'd already rung Williams, but they told me you did the rubber-related stuff so I never mentioned anything else..." It involves fitting the tyre with a conducting thread, at a predetermiend depth in the rubber, throughout the section of the tyre. An electronic "eye", mounted in the air dam proximal to the rotating wheel, picks up a signal from the tyre, whioch increases as the depth reduces as there is less density of rubber. The signal is sent via the black box gubbins to the pit lane crew. I finished by saying, rather credibly, '' By process of research it may be even possible to gauge rate of wear on different tracks, even the wear on different F/R tyres, to enable either no change atall or only 1 - 2 tyres (to be) changed.'' And with a fluorish, I added, '' Therefore ^ chance of winning. Yours, Jim''

Now, I can see you guys chuckling in a manner which isnt yet covered by a :smiley: but, at the time, I was keen to do my bit for Manse and country.

No replies. No worries.

Then soem time ago I am sure I heard the mention of tyre wear and telemetry in the same sentence and thought ''Doh! Knew I should've followed it up''.

So, if I am not totally mad, and you are out there Paul or Tony, and are prepared to cough and admit where that mad idea came from.... then, just a small contribution towards Christmas would be really sweet please

If not, well, come on guys, get your thinkin' caps on

All I need is around 16K in royalties. I aint greedy.

[shadowfax]

...... oh they've all gone quiet over there.
Yes, they've all gone quiet over there ....

Someone somewhere must have done the maths on this one.
Is it feasible?

>> Edited by shadowfax on Saturday 10th December 17:04