Are Pirelli stopping racing?

[BigRedOne]

Schumacher was dead-on in his assessment of Pirelli's tires. These self-destructing tires should be done away with and proper racing tires need to be introduced. There is entirely too much manipulation of the racing by the FIA in Formula One these days.

[Liscia]

I too believe it's wrong to blame Pirelli for the 'P-Pathetics or 'P-Less Than Zeroes' that they supply to F1 as they
are just fulfilling FIA/FOM dictates. They are more than capable of engineering and manufacturingsuperior racing rubber
but are prevented from doing so as the artificial 'spectacle' that Bernie the Eck is fobbing off would be compromised.

[ducksick_ang]

I totally agree wit MS... Once you made mistake in pit, like Ramilton, no matters how fast you are, you cant crawl back.. compared to BS/Michelin era. Less racing/overtake? As a fans, we all want is racing/overtaking etc etc and not how good you save a set of tire. If you ask the drivers now, a racing driver will wants a tire that can push for 15-20laps at a constant lap times. That's racing and this is F1.

[Chicane]

I thinks it not pirelli's fault, i think they been asked to design a tire like this to make it more exciting, more pit stop more drama and things like that..i think it more about the fom/fia managing that no team can dominate just like the ferrari days when for them everything that time is boring and predictable.
yeah it a good shows because of the dramas the excitement about strategy..but somehow you take away what drivers like to do best and thats pushing their machine to the outmost limit..because as of now you to go between driving conservative and driving a little aggressive..i kinda miss the goodyear vs bridgestone years..

[anakin]

interesting comments from schumi... i think there a lot of teams having problem to develop their car because of the pirelli's. small window for performance and temperature sensitive. and when they loose their life as drivers call it a cliff. for a lap it is still holding on and then for another lap, there is no more grip available. that is so very frustrating but what is taken my attention is shumi told that you can't push the car to the limit, you should look after the tires for the race duration. you cant drive in the cars normal speed but drive in cruise control to have a nice race.

[hogo]

Well out of all top teams/drivers Michael had the most new sets of tires available, yet he had only 3 stops. Why couldn't he push like he wanted even if that meant more than 3 stops? But he didn't, so this looks like a way to justify his failure, I can't respect that.

[aroutis]

I have to agree with Schumi. I don't know if the exact expression is that the tyres stop racing, but they surely hamper it.

[Nick Singer]

f1 is no longer about racing..its about artificial devices...however tire management soulld always be a part of a drivers skills

True. There are too many 'artificial' influences on racing now but, having said that, the drivers and teams should be able to deal with them all..

[RedRebel40]

but is 7/8 laps before tyres being done a good thing?

that's not true, from lap 1 they are conserving their tyres. All the topcars and drivers drive at 60-70% to keep the tyres alive. Like Schumacher said he is trying to keep with the delta times instead of going full power and this is sad imo.

this is a testing stint driven at 100% like they should by Rosberg:

13:44:27 50 1:22.932 -0.278
13:45:33 51 1:23.602 +0.670
13:47:37 52 1:24.588 +0.986
13:48:31 53 1:25.418 +0.830
13:50:33 54 1:25.384 -0.034
13:51:29 55 1:25.750 +0.366
13:52:37 56 1:25.987 +0.237
13:54:27 57 1:25.893 -0.094
13:55:34 58 1:26.273 +0.380
13:57:35 59 1:26.384 +0.111
13:58:35 60 1:26.849 +0.465
14:00:28 61 1:27.094 +0.245
14:01:28 62 1:27.456 +0.362
And again:
12:42:29 32 1:23.040 -3.155
12:44:31 33 1:23.698 +0.658
12:45:26 34 1:24.614 +0.916
12:47:27 35 1:25.048 +0.434
12:48:33 36 1:25.537 +0.489
12:49:28 37 1:25.850 +0.313
12:51:31 38 1:25.775 -0.075
12:52:36 39 1:26.162 +0.387
And again:
11:10:26 12 1:24.353 -0.814
11:11:32 13 1:25.060 +0.707
11:13:35 14 1:25.345 +0.285
11:14:31 15 1:25.596 +0.251
11:16:31 16 1:26.057 +0.461
11:17:27 17 1:26.762 +0.705
11:19:28 18 1:27.007 +0.245
11:20:36 19 1:27.005 -0.002

look at the real drop off from lap 1 on. this is sad because drives like 1998 Hungaroring are not possible anymore.

also the rubberlayer of the Bridgestones was 6 mm and the Pirelli's are only 2,5 mm.

[Hornet]

Well out of all top teams/drivers Michael had the most new sets of tires available, yet he had only 3 stops. Why couldn't he push like he wanted even if that meant more than 3 stops? But he didn't, so this looks like a way to justify his failure, I can't respect that.

Its happening to everyone, not just Schumi. The Pirelli tires have a flaw where once its performance drops, it falls right off the cliff. You're basically giving the sportsmen a set of tools that were rigged to fail randomly, for the sake of entertainment. Is this sport?

Racing is a competition of skills, not dicing with luck. How can a driver show their skill when the tools they are given hiders them?

[Greig]

that's not true, from lap 1 they are conserving their tyres. All the topcars and drivers drive at 60-70% to keep the tyres alive. Like Schumacher said he is trying to keep with the delta times instead of going full power and this is sad imo.

this is a testing stint driven at 100% like they should by Rosberg:

Not sure what the testing stint is meant to show?

How about the teams also conserving fuel to last the race, the teams do this by design, should that be an issue for MS also?

[RedRebel40]

Not sure what the testing stint is meant to show?

How about the teams also conserving fuel to last the race, the teams do this by design, should that be an issue for MS also?

look at the drop off when you drive at 100% its around 4 seconds.... so to avoid this they are just cruising around.

[WRX202]

These tyres remind me of the "qualifying only" rubber. 1 maybe 2 good laps and then bye bye...

[JHAMMER]

They did away with refueling now you have to come in and change tires as often as you would have had to refuel

[zakfourie]

yeah don't the refuelling ban also have in impact on this?

[RED]

I do miss the days when manufacturers tried to make the tyres last as long as possible. I think the competition between the tyre manufacturers, as well as competition between the teams, was a good thing.

[Red passion]

I do miss the days when manufacturers tried to make the tyres last as long as possible. I think the competition between the tyre manufacturers, as well as competition between the teams, was a good thing.

So do I, We don't need a tyre to fall apart to enjoy this sport, what we need is 2 or 3 tyre manufacturers that can supply tyres which can do 100% every lap (what I expect from a F1 driver) and this would spice things up.

Watching Kimi fall back in China is not really sport it is sort of manufactured entertainment like X-factor.
It is no fun watching a driver drive at 60-70% of his out-right pace to preserve tyres.

we had this crap in 2005 season Kimi again was a victim to this when the tyre called it a day with a lap to go I think in Nurburgring.

I think the driver and quality of the car should decide a championship not a tyre.

[Red passion]

These tyres remind me of the "qualifying only" rubber. 1 maybe 2 good laps and then bye bye...

Oh I remember those tyres and also a quali engine too and bin it

[Hornet]

Oh I remember those tyres and also a quali engine too and bin it

I honestly miss those days. We have engines and tires just for friday test, a special set that last 12 laps only for qualifying, and another set for race itself. And those engines sound so amazing, V10 going as high RPM as it can mechanically go.

Now everything is about conservative. You have to preserve your engine, you have to preserve your tires. People are skipping qualifying runs because they want to save tires, or because they ran out of tires. Its really sad.

[diesel08]

Its happening to everyone, not just Schumi. The Pirelli tires have a flaw where once its performance drops, it falls right off the cliff. You're basically giving the sportsmen a set of tools that were rigged to fail randomly, for the sake of entertainment. Is this sport?

Racing is a competition of skills, not dicing with luck. How can a driver show their skill when the tools they are given hiders them?

agreed!2012 is the best show-seson in f1 in last 15 years!We want show but cars can't overtake because aero evolution and new track design.DRS is ok but pirelli tyre is not..get serios guy...If the team got a good car pilot can racing to very limit, if not, we can only talk about...

[diesel08]

MS is a Mercedes pilot, the team who had a big issue whit this tyres...why he did not mention anythink about artificial overtake with DRS?superDRS-w-duct etcetera

[ferrari4life]

whatever happened to put the hammer down and blow past a rival with pure raw engine muscle.. this aero crap is for the birds really. How can you have "motor sport" and limit the development of the "motor"?
Look at the last race.. 4 renaults that are known to have the slowest engines were winner.. While that speaks volumes of RB and lotus as far as car makers... it is just sad that They have limited Ferrari and Merc's pure engine power so badly.

[SS454]

I don't think tires that last 7 laps are providing a better show in 2012, and I think if the tires lasted 50% longer even it would make the racing even more exciting. I don't think Schumacher is demanding a major change in the tires, just something that provides the option for a driver to push 100% for a handful of laps before the tires start to lose pace. This generation of Pirellis are so sensitive that if the driver pushes just a little too much in just a sequence of corners, the tires don't really recover.

[Greig]

Gary Anderson

It was also interesting to hear Mercedes' Michael Schumacher complain about the Pirelli tyres.

He is a professional racing driver, and it's all about looking after your tyres. You do that by getting the right balance on the car.

When I was involved with Bridgestone tyres with Jaguar in the early 2000s, in the middle of the tyre war with Michelin, Schumacher and Ferrari had tyres we were not even allowed to look at.

They cost so much money that Bridgestone could not afford to supply them to everyone. And whenever we did have an opportunity to run a derivative of those tyres, our lap times were much, much better.

It's a bit sad that Michael now sees things the other way around, because a lot of his competitiveness in those days was down to the working relationship he and Ferrari had with Bridgestone, one to which nobody else had access.

Now there's a standard tyre, it's down to him and Mercedes to get it working properly, not point the finger at the supplier.

[coolrunnings_99]

One has to make a choice.
It either cup racing, to some exciting and bone chilling stuff, to some the exact opposite of what they want to see in racing ie Fromula 1 being the pinacle of motor sports, in real life meaning carte blanche for any big car manufacturer who finds in their balance sheets a space of few billions dollars, or euros to go and win races in F1.
The thing is, such car manufactureres do not exist anymore, and if they do, given the FIA carte blanche rule book, they also tend to make racing pretty boring indeed.
No money, no honey, so the poor old FOM is stuck with financial stunts, tyre stunts, DRS stunts, KERS stunts, freezes in engine development, tyre mandates to make em look close and racy.
It is almost resembeling a situation nobody wants, but wouldnt mind wining it.

Someone posted before, " whats the point of motor sports, if you ban the development of motors", thus hitting the nail on the head.

Its racing formula for open wheel racing cars, now it is as such, tommorow maybe a V12 5 liter biturbo, or 2 cylinder 600 ccms two stroke plastic engine, in both cases its ultimately the spredsheet that says what kind of formula should we race in order for most of the participtants to make most money with.

MS as anybody, can voice his concern and opinion, and its only natural that a bloke from "s different spredsheet era of racing", has conundrums with "todays spredsheet in force".If it was him leading the scoreboard would mean that a) you would never see or hear him say anything into the bargain apart from giving praise to Mercedes cleaning ladies, and b) that would mean that he s got the hang of it, and its no longer an issue.


I am just happy that Kimmi is up there..

[Greig]

MS as anybody, can voice his concern and opinion, and its only natural that a bloke from "s different spredsheet era of racing", has conundrums with "todays spredsheet in force".If it was him leading the scoreboard would mean that a) you would never see or hear him say anything into the bargain apart from giving praise to Mercedes cleaning ladies, and b) that would mean that he s got the hang of it, and its no longer an issue.

[Nova]

I have to say, Pirelli makes great tires, for street, racing, etc..and that they are simply giving the FIA what they requested.
The fact that they dont allow for bells out real racing and competition is not their fault. Any company that would be supplying F1
would have to work under the same guide lines set by the fia.
The fact that drivers cannot push the car lap after lap, or do 20 laps without worrying they'll fall to pieces?
Well, no, thats not real racing..thats controlled entertainment. There wasnt that much passing yesterday, some midfield stuff,
but only when tires fell off. It wasnt down to any drivers ability. So where was the entertainment? In the pits?
It may be me, but I find this season somewhat boring.

[Naeem]

I agree that pirelli are doing what they're asked however MS does have a point. With DRS and Kers, flaky tyres need not be an overtaking aid also.

[Silent Bob]

I kind of agree with those that say the tires are a little too artificial. As we saw last year, being gentle on tires was not a benefit.. it actually was detrimental to stay out longer on the tires as they wore because the car with fresh tires was so much quicker on the outlap and next few laps. Just make the tires more consistent throughout their life span but keep the speed differential between compounds.
I loved tha days when Goodyear came to the track with a hard compound and a soft compound and the teams had to choose one or the other for the race.

[Red passion]

Does Pirelli lose any customers in everyday business because they are perceived to make poor tyres because they fall off in performance during the race. I know i personally won't buy pirelli even though i know they are a reputable manufacturer and can make decent tyres. It is a perception i now have if their tyres in F1 are poor, then i think the road car tyres they make won't be as durable as their main competitors.