FIA have some questions to answer.

[JimClarkFan]

Let me start by saying that I believe the tyre changes were absolutely necessary, tyre failures as Coultard described it are driver killers and had to be changed.

That said however, the change of the tyres mid season drastically affected the run of the championship. Red Bull have admitted that the tyre changes fell into their hands, and that the change to the new compounds allowed them to withdraw the maximum performance from their car.

There were obvious losers too, Force India and Ferrari moved back several places in terms of relative performance. Ferrari, who many have tipped as being the best all round car at the start of the season, is arguably the 4th or 5th fastest car now behind RB, Merc and Lotus - not that I believe the sum of Ferrari's miseries is all down to tyres but it seems to have played a big part.

What annoys me the most in this is that the teams got data on the tyres at the end of last year, and presumably used that data for car development. I strongly disliked that fundamental changes had to be taken in the middle of the season. Teams that did their homework, and developed a car to work the tyres best over the course of a race were penalised. They were penalised in terms on race performance, penalised in championship standings, and ultimate penalised in developmental costs and the amount of money they will be rewarded for next season if they drop places in the constructors.

The blame is often attributed to Pirelli, however Pirelli builds tyres to the specification that the FIA ask. The FIA not only asked Pirelli to build tyres that would degrade quickly to provide more entertaining races, but they also limited in and out of season testing which could have prevented such issue arising in the first place. Safety issues should have been ironed out before we had blow ups during the season, and the result of that was a fundamental change to the Formula in the middle of the season, with Pirelli acting as the fall guy.

Pirelli have a right to be angry, and their threats to leave F1 without more testing are justified.

I want to know what are the FIA doing about this? How will they prevent this in the future? How do they explain to teams who spent a large amount of money developing a car around tyres that would degrade quickly where their money went? How do they explain to them their lost positions in the constructors? How does this whole issue fit in with the drive to reduce costs? What does this mean for safety in the future? I think they have a lot to answer for, and pointing the finger of blame at Pirelli doesn't cut it.

[dan928]

interesting facts

[Manoah2u]

The FIA doesn't have to do too much about this, it is Pirelli who is to blame.

Pirelli changed structure from kevlar to steel, and have created tires that in the entire history of the sport has never
been seen so dangerous. They blame it as if their hands are tied due to testing restrictions, however, it looks more
like pirelli is trying to use the cheapest and weakest material [possibly the cheapest] to see how far they can stretch that,
essentially resulting in research material they can put to use on their tires for 'normal' road cars [to understand how to use the least and cheapest to get the biggest bucks]. IMHO, Paul Hembery has shown enough busted-guilty faces especially during silverstone and the aftermath, not to forget Korea. It's solutions to the problem were a farce. Pirelli only blames the teams and is trying to divert attention to other factors then the fact they are failing hugely.
They act like the test-ban is hurting them, and offcourse to a certain degree, that is true - however, it has been the same for Bridgestone before, and out of all F1 and racing history, never has there been such extreme tire failures [like the utter and complete delaminations] in the entire history of the sport, and the in-season test ban was not new with the introduction of Pirelli to the sport.

Apart from that, Pirelli did have tests, even though that be older F1 cars.
I can completely understand Pirelli's point that it should have decent up-to-date testing platform in the form of recent F1 material, to fullfill the demand to create a tire that either the FIA, or inderectly 'entertainment' is asking of them.

however, it is completely unacepptable and the lack of testing does in no way defend the extreme danger and lack of respect of human [driver] life that is the result of Pirelli's complete sham and redicilous product that supposedly is a 'tire'.
It's not that Pirelli could not make a good, safe, tire - clearly it isn't their number 1 priority - which is mind-blowingly mad.

IF pirelli's first priority would be, as it should, to guarantee driver safety, then these extreme amounts of tire failure would have never happened, and pirelli would have adequately responded. Instead, the drivers and teams themselves threatened to boycot because pirelli didn't do their part.

The only thing I cant 'blame' FIA is that they haven't banned or booted Pirelli, reprimanded them or warned them officially,
and have IMHO not put enough effort for other brands to replace Pirelli due to their facade.

FIA should implement a mandatory test where officials independent of Pirelli conduct a safety test. I am sure there are enough smart minds that know how to test this, I think even Discovery's MythBusters could invent something without having the need to drive a fashionably 2013 F1 car in real life. Plenty of computer and real life simulation materials to properly test the tires.

I highly doubt Michelin's Bugatti Veyron Tires weren't tested upon safety and strenght before they put them on the car.
Imagine a delamination on a veyron at 400+kph. 'Yeah it's Volkswagon's fault, they didn't give us tonnes of veyrons to test with, so we are not to blame, let's see the results, maybe bugatti fitted the tire backwards or didn't put the pressure in that we said they should do". P.Hembery logic.

anyway......FIA should commence a tire safety test like is normal for roadcars aswell. And while at it, Pirelli should be banned from F1 and Paul Hembery fired.

Pirelli has zero right to be angry. The drivers dodging life-threatening tire debris due to pirelli's fault have the right to be angry. We seen what happened to massa just by a spring, imagine Perez' tire hitting alonso in the head.

[Pup]

Actually, I'm pretty sure you can blame Pirelli just as much as anyone else. They wanted zero competition and yet they also wanted people to pay attention to the tires. Silly rules about mandatory pit stops and stripy sidewalls weren't enough to keep Bridgestone interested, so Pirelli came into F1 fully on board with the Crap Tire™ theory of racing. Personally, I would add to their motivation the idea that they're incapable of making anything but, but of course that's my own speculation.

My advice to the FIA is to double down. Pull in a single fuel supplier and have them surprise the teams with a random fuel spec each race which may or may not cause their engines to 'splode. Now that's racing!

[JimClarkFan]

^^Interesting posts.

So I can agree, Pirelli are to blame more than I had credited them with, based on what you guys have said above.

With respect to the FIA, whose job it is to govern F1 and provide oversight, what can they do in future. I still feel much of this is a direct result of them.

[Pup]

One fairly easy thing that the FIA could do is to disqualify teams who don't strictly follow Pirelli's recommendations for tire usage. While I don't think the problem is at all limited to the teams' use, it has certainly made Pirelli's job more difficult. I mean, if the teams are turning their tires around backwards, like Merc, or running them far longer than recommended, like McLaren, you can't really blame Pirelli if they pop.

[Manoah2u]

One fairly easy thing that the FIA could do is to disqualify teams who don't strictly follow Pirelli's recommendations for tire usage. While I don't think the problem is at all limited to the teams' use, it has certainly made Pirelli's job more difficult. I mean, if the teams are turning their tires around backwards, like Merc, or running them far longer than recommended, like McLaren, you can't really blame Pirelli if they pop.

Agreed to a certain extent. A certain extent, because what mclaren did with the tires was not just mclaren. multiple teams did exactly the same, and they've been doing it for several races for several years. So in essence , that wasn't the problem. The problem was the weak pirelli quality - they even went as far as to blame kerbstones at tracks, that have been like that for YEARS if not DECADES. suddenly, some part of the track is to blame for the pirelli popping? hell no.

imagine your own tires under your car popping just by slightly hitting a sidewalk, or a little stone or piece of plastic on the road. "yeah you didn't put the right pressure and it's the road's fault". Not only would I meet them in court, i'd media it all over the place but the first thing i'd do is remove these pencil erasers immediately from my car, put some proper material on the car, and tell all my friends and family never to buy such a thing - essentially boycotting it.

Again, Pirelli disregarded the entire concept of tires and provided tires that in their own alternative little world would work as long as everybody did EXACTLY what pirelli said. who's boss again? Pirelli has business in F1 thanks to F1 excisting, not the other way around.

Disqualifying teams that did not conform to the Pirelli advise is a little harsh i think, reprimands would be better and strike 3 would be a disqualification. But indeed - that recomandation was a patch onto a bleeding gaping shotgun wound. It was just to find a rush fix to a huge problem to which Pirelli didn't want to bring a proper solution - proper tires.

Yes, Pirelli has several points in which they do make sense - it however does not weigh up remotely to their extreme disregard for driver safety [life] and respect for the sport. I remember that one of the rules is that it is illegal to put the sport into a bad light or compromise F1's credibility. wasn't that the reason Flavio Briatore was banned with the piquet-gate? So how can Pirelli still be around?

If you ask me, F1 can only go up from changing Tire Manufacturer. Bring back Michelin, Bridgestone or Goodyear. Or how about Toyo? That could be a interesting 'fresh' brand into F1 with a promising business platform.

[JimClarkFan]

One fairly easy thing that the FIA could do is to disqualify teams who don't strictly follow Pirelli's recommendations for tire usage. While I don't think the problem is at all limited to the teams' use, it has certainly made Pirelli's job more difficult. I mean, if the teams are turning their tires around backwards, like Merc, or running them far longer than recommended, like McLaren, you can't really blame Pirelli if they pop.

Agreed to a certain extent. A certain extent, because what mclaren did with the tires was not just mclaren. multiple teams did exactly the same, and they've been doing it for several races for several years. So in essence , that wasn't the problem. The problem was the weak pirelli quality - they even went as far as to blame kerbstones at tracks, that have been like that for YEARS if not DECADES. suddenly, some part of the track is to blame for the pirelli popping? hell no.

imagine your own tires under your car popping just by slightly hitting a sidewalk, or a little stone or piece of plastic on the road. "yeah you didn't put the right pressure and it's the road's fault". Not only would I meet them in court, i'd media it all over the place but the first thing i'd do is remove these pencil erasers immediately from my car, put some proper material on the car, and tell all my friends and family never to buy such a thing - essentially boycotting it.

Again, Pirelli disregarded the entire concept of tires and provided tires that in their own alternative little world would work as long as everybody did EXACTLY what pirelli said. who's boss again? Pirelli has business in F1 thanks to F1 excisting, not the other way around.

Disqualifying teams that did not conform to the Pirelli advise is a little harsh i think, reprimands would be better and strike 3 would be a disqualification. But indeed - that recomandation was a patch onto a bleeding gaping shotgun wound. It was just to find a rush fix to a huge problem to which Pirelli didn't want to bring a proper solution - proper tires.

Yes, Pirelli has several points in which they do make sense - it however does not weigh up remotely to their extreme disregard for driver safety [life] and respect for the sport. I remember that one of the rules is that it is illegal to put the sport into a bad light or compromise F1's credibility. wasn't that the reason Flavio Briatore was banned with the piquet-gate? So how can Pirelli still be around?

I can agree that Pups solution is a viable one, certainly regarding the way Mercedes use their tyres - that should be implemented with haste. However I am not much liking the idea of forcing teams to commit to running only a number of laps on a certain tyre, I feel development of a car which is good on its tyres should be a part of F1 and teams should not be impeding from doing so. Additionally I think it would remove one of the only interesting things about the racing at the moment which is tyre strategy.

However I am not sure that I agree with your interpretation Manoah2u. Granted Pirelli could have just constructed the tyre better by using more robust material. However, and I keep coming back to this, the tyres are made to FIA specification of improving entertainment (which the FIA are happy to take credit for) but on the other hand the FIA refuse testing on grounds of cost cutting and yet blame Pirelli when the tyres fail.

Now, to state the bloomin' obvious, that seems fairly hypocritical of the FIA. If you are going to ask for tyres to degrade faster to produce better racing, you should on the other hand accept that increased testing on those tyres is going to be required to ensure adequate safety. Additionally that testing should be performed by a modern cars which will stress the tyres fully and in a way which can be correlated with racing within the season - yes even more testing. Finally, testing with a single race car, which ironically just happens to be a Lotus (hardly the best choice of car to stress test tyres with imo) also seems like a bit of an oversight - I'm not sure whose decision that was.

[Pup]

I don't know if the testing is more an issue with the FIA or the teams. That is, the smaller teams can't afford to do more testing, or at least don't want to spend the money, and of course they don't want the other teams to test if they can't.

Though one could certainly argue that this is exactly the occasion where the FIA should show some decisive leadership instead of pussyfooting around trying to be diplomatic. Perhaps the fact that this is an election year had some bearing on the situation. Or perhaps Todt is reluctant to follow Mosley's footsteps in being a bit too hands-on.

Or perhaps he wants Michelin back in F1 and making Pirelli look bad might help in that regard. Or perhaps he was a bit more sympathetic to Renault's "factory" team's request to change the compound. One could imagine such things if one were inclined to do so.

[Jersey Tom]

What annoys me the most in this is that the teams got data on the tyres at the end of last year, and presumably used that data for car development. I strongly disliked that fundamental changes had to be taken in the middle of the season. Teams that did their homework, and developed a car to work the tyres best over the course of a race were penalised.

Worth noting, some of that "data" was junk and teams were penalized just by trying to do their homework in the first place.

Also worth considering is that there is a lot that never makes it out to the public / fans. So any amount of finger pointing or praise or whatever is often educated speculation at best, mislead speculation at worst.

[strad]

Vote for Dave

[Juzh]

Pirelli's original excuse was that 2013 cars on average put more stress into the tires (due to more DF compared to 2012) than what they initially expected. How come then 2010 bridgestones could last nearly entire race distance on a single set while putting down lap times ~2s faster in race trim as they currently do. Remember webber in hungary 2010? He did something like half the race on used (!) option tyres to gain a pit stop over alonso. Pirelli keep talking how they can make their tires last if they wanted to, but I simply do not believe that. Yes, they could make them last, but in the process they will create them so hard they will have zero grip to talk about. Bridgestone > pirelli

[Just_a_fan]

Let's not forget that one of the reasons we are where we are with tyres is because of the need to provide some way to overtake. You don't have to go back very far to remember races where no one overtook except during a pitstop. So they brought in the "2 compounds, must run both" rule to force some changes on track. Now that other ways of helping on-track overtaking exist, it would be better (and probably safer too, not least for the people in the pit lane) to go back to a single tyre that lasts the race or at least just have one tyre that is used at every race - none of this soft, medium, hard tyres rubbish, just a single compound for the entire season.

Different tracks would require different driver strengths to get the most from the (effectively a control) tyre.

[GitanesBlondes]

There's nothing wrong with having 2 compounds available at a race in my opinion. What is silly though, is the requirement that teams use both compounds. They should be free to use whatever they like. In fact, they should be free to mix and match compounds. That was something you would see years ago with Goodyear. Teams would run different compounds at the same time on the car depending on what they needed. Though I suspect Pirelli would probably claim that would be a safety issue if such a thing were allowed now.

The thing too with Pirelli is that they got drawn into this BS at the insistent of Ecclestone. Are they capable of producing a much better tire than the one we see currently? Most likely. How good? Who really knows. Part of the benefit of a single tire supplier is that it is supposed to take focus off of the tires so the whining is down to a minimum. Yet that has not happened. It's sort of embarrassing when one considers that Le Mans has turned into a 24 hour sprint race, yet F1 is a place where driving on the limit is penalized. Maybe I am the only one who sees something wrong with this?

[Kiril Varbanov]

Also worth considering is that there is a lot that never makes it out to the public / fans. So any amount of finger pointing or praise or whatever is often educated speculation at best, mislead speculation at worst.

Which is pretty bad. But I guess no one can prevent from shooting yourself. Pirelli did more damage to their image more than anyone could anticipated and that's a solid fact.
They also managed to remove my media account in their websites for just being vocal in public about the issues - which is laughable, because I didn't really care about their data. What was really interesting were the extreme tire failures - they do happen for a reason. For me, my simple uneducated guess would be lack of testing. This, however, is down to Pirelli.

Then, those failures happen at certain conditions. If these conditions are not known, means that Pirelli haven't properly tested their product. Which is surely their fault. Note: that's not really finger pointing, it's how I judge things as a fan and someone who makes living from testing, apart from my media adventures.

If Pirelli were aware of the obvious deficiencies of their product, we would have had limits from the very beginning. The Michelin and Veyron count is what really plays here.

Finally, it's the results that matter. They state fair share of advantage for some teams and disadvantage to others. Regardless of the circumstances.

Now, why this is not finger pointing and wish all the best to Pirelli? Because as I mention in my previous post, blaming prevents learning - it's a known thing from general knowledge psychology. I'd like Pirelli to learn from their mistakes (unless they are really stubborn to admit the issues!) and make a better tires for next year. The increased torque demands could be detrimental to their efforts, so they need to act quick. Some steps are already taken, I believe.