World Endurance Championship 2015

[Cold Fussion]

They can only push for what the tyres allow for and you can clearly see this with time dropping off substantially during the double stints. The only difference is the rate of the drop off.

[SectorOne]

They can only push for what the tyres allow for and you can clearly see this with time dropping off substantially during the double stints. The only difference is the rate of the drop off.

Yea but what do you expect? They are double stinting the tires. the fact that that is even an option is nothing short of amazing.

They are going flat out for the majority of the race, only when they are planing on doing two full stints on one single set of tires do they have to manage the tires.

Pirelli needs to leave the sport. Make way for Michelin or some other company that wants to produce the best tires they possibly can.

[Jonnycraig]

Pirelli needs to leave the sport. Make way for Michelin or some other company that wants to produce the best tires they possibly can.

Eh? Pirelli have always stated they are more than happy to provide a tyre that can be pushed for an entire F1 distance.

FOM & the Teams want tyres that provide an engineering challenge and 'spice up' the racing.

[Artur Craft]

a) Maybe they simply overrate the last years tire and pure speed advantage.

b) Or their capacitor 6MJ tech reach its budget vs. performance limits. Limmits between energy and weight density to achieve same the performance leap gain as competitors (that diminishing returns logic). Remember there were rumors about Toyota to ditch the capacitors for Li-Po batteries before this season already. Strangely or logical due success in WEC championship and its pure domination it appeared that they pull the wrong move at the moment.

a) Toyota didn't have tyre advantage last year, quite the contrary. Audi double stinted several times last year when Toyota didn't and other times Audi could use the Soft compounds while Toyota used the Medium

b)I don't know if the 6MJ reached it's limit. The problem is that Toyota is said to work on a lower budget than the VAG teams, so the aero of their car is pretty poorly developed, in comparison to Audi, which was 2s faster than Toyota with only 4MJ

This flat out racing thing is a myth. LMP1 has become so reliable now that they are now completely tire limited just like F1 is. The final hour and half of racing between the #17 Porsche and #7 was dominated by the tyre strategy and tyre performance dropoff. The only difference is that the tyre drop off for F1 is much more extreme , but both series are only going as fast as the tyres allow across a race stint.

It's partially a myth. They don't go 100% the entire time but almost it.

For example, in Silverstone, Audi's best times with fresh tyres was 1.40.8. Lotterer was doing 1.42.3 by the end of his second stint on the same set. One stint meant 33 laps, so, with tyres on their 60th lap, Lotterer was "just" 1.5s from the best.

Let's not forget that the F1 GP have 52 laps and you will struggle to do even half of that on the Hard compound of Pirelli.

The Pirelli tyres have huge drops, so the drivers need to nurse them. On WEC, there is also drop off, which is inevitable, but it's small and the drivers usually push pretty much as in qualifying, but with a bit less grip.

Pirelli needs to leave the sport. Make way for Michelin or some other company that wants to produce the best tires they possibly can.

Eh? Pirelli have always stated they are more than happy to provide a tyre that can be pushed for an entire F1 distance.

Any tyre company can make tyres that will last for a certain distance. The problem is how will be the performance of that tyre. As it has been since 2011, even Pirelli's hardest compounds are very fragile and needs to be managed when they are used.

Pirelli's SuperSofts are up to 4s faster than their's Hards, depending on the track. If Pirelli were to bring more durable tyres, ones that could reasonably sustain for quite more than an F1 GP(at Spa, Audi sort of triple stinted), imagine how much slower those tyres would be?! I would say the Hards can sustain for about 40% of a race, at best, on tracks like Silverstone. They would need to last, at least, 3 times more to reach the levels of the LMP1s. Better not even to think how many seconds slower that tyre would be

For curiosity, at Spa, the last tyre change on Audi #7 happened at lap 117. The first lap after that was 1.59.1 and 11 laps later he did 1.59.9. Another 11 laps later, he did 1.59.8 By lap 164, Treluyer clocked 1.59.9 and carried the same tyres untill lap 176(the finish). Obviously there is constant traffic and laptimes are up and down

That's an use of almost 60 laps for a single set and F1's GP is composed of only 44. During an use of 47 laps, Audi was lapping only 0,8s slower, do you seriously compare that to F1?

As a last thing, on fast race laps, Audi corners with the same speeds of F1's during qualifying, which are much slower in race pace. LMP1's are 36% heavier and likely generate more downforce, so the vertical and lateral loads, and overall stress, acting on the Michelin tyres are significantly greater. If you fitted Michelin LMP1 tyres on the current F1 cars, they would be literally pushing like qualifying for the whole race and the drop would be very small as F1's would put quite less stress on them

[Cold Fussion]

My point is that series are tyre limited, which is inevitable since the cars are capable of being pushed for an entire race distance without falling apart. I don't like how the word 'push' has been hijacked to mean going as close as possible to the theoretical maximum pace as long as possible, driving at the tyre limit all race is still pushing in my mind.

[aleks_ader]

driving at the tyre limit all race is still pushing in my mind.

It isnt that racing all about? Reach maxium of OVERALL package- Hell yeah. =D>

[GPR-A duplicate2]

I seriously wonder, what business value PIRELLI is getting out of all the flak that they are getting in Formula One. There is so much negativity around the product they are manufacturing for F1. They are of course gaining revenue from selling their product to F1, but in doing so, they are obviously taking a big hit to their reputation as they have become epicenter of the inducing artificiality.

While PIRELLI has taken centre stage for not so good reasons, the Constructors (All manufacturers other than PIRELLI) are getting restricted in showcasing their product capabilities. It really feels ironic that, F1 is supposed to be pinnacle of Motorsport innovation and while all manufacturers/suppliers work their a** off to create high performing products, PIRELLI on the other hand, has to work on creating LOW PERFORMING product. For Ex: Till now, no one has really seen what is the optimum performance of Mercedes PU, due to the restricted framework of tyres. A car is made up of so many components from a variety of manufacturers/suppliers, but almost everyone is being held back due to that one critical parameter, tyres.

As for PIRELLI, I don't think they are INCAPABLE of manufacturing high endurance tyres and in fact, I believe it is probably more difficult to create the kind of tyres that they are manufacturing for F1 right now. Current tyres might require some kind of complex algorithm in terms of mixture required to create these kind of short span tyres. It might indeed be easy to manufacture high endurance tyres. PIRELLI is serving to what FOM/FIA want them to do.

[djos]

I seriously wonder, what business value PIRELLI is getting out of all the flak that they are getting in Formula One. There is so much negativity around the product they are manufacturing for F1. They are of course gaining revenue from selling their product to F1, but in doing so, they are obviously taking a big hit to their reputation as they have become epicenter of the inducing artificiality.
.

+1

I sure as hell refuse to buy their products, I recently put continental tires on both our cars.

[MattyT]

I seriously wonder, what business value PIRELLI is getting out of all the flak that they are getting in Formula One. There is so much negativity around the product they are manufacturing for F1. They are of course gaining revenue from selling their product to F1, but in doing so, they are obviously taking a big hit to their reputation as they have become epicenter of the inducing artificiality.
.

+1

I sure as hell refuse to buy their products, I recently put continental tires on both our cars.

I agree. I know several people (not huge Motorsport fans) who still rate Bridgestone as the best tyre because they were in F1.

On topic, The first 30 mins of WEC was some really exciting racing. The different classes add a bit I think as at least you see a lot of cars passing cars, even if it's being lapped. Following the first 30 though I'd say it was no more interesting than F1.

[mrluke]

I seriously wonder, what business value PIRELLI is getting out of all the flak that they are getting in Formula One. There is so much negativity around the product they are manufacturing for F1. They are of course gaining revenue from selling their product to F1, but in doing so, they are obviously taking a big hit to their reputation as they have become epicenter of the inducing artificiality.
.

+1

I sure as hell refuse to buy their products, I recently put continental tires on both our cars.

I cannot comprehend the logic in use here

Pirelli's brief is to make tyres that last between 1/3 and 1/2 of a race distance with no testing and by fixing the compounds before the new cars are unveiled.

Thats a pretty big ask that on the whole they have done very well, due to all the flak they get we now see the choices getting more and more conservative but I would be amazed if they aren't looking to leave the sport as soon as they can.

[djos]

+1

I sure as hell refuse to buy their products, I recently put continental tires on both our cars.

I cannot comprehend the logic in use here

Pirelli's brief is to make tyres that last between 1/3 and 1/2 of a race distance with no testing and by fixing the compounds before the new cars are unveiled.

Thats a pretty big ask that on the whole they have done very well, due to all the flak they get we now see the choices getting more and more conservative but I would be amazed if they aren't looking to leave the sport as soon as they can.

It's really simple, Pirelli tires in F1 leave me with a "bad taste in my mouth" so I automatically exclude them when shopping for new tires, compare that to Continental who supply great performing race tires in the US based IMSA racing series (and others) who I eventually bought for both my cars. I also considered Michelin, Bridgestone and Dunlop who also have/do made/make tires that have performed well in various racing series I watch.

Bottom line, I like to support companies that support motorsport I like to watch and that leave a positive impression on me due to their performance - imo this is a major reason for companies to spend their marketing dollars in Motor Sport.

[Just_a_fan]

I buy tyres that give me the performance I need from my vehicle. That generally means good braking grip and, in the case of my Range Rover, the ability to go off road whilst also being good enough for serious on road mileage too. I'll probably buy Pirelli Scorpion ATR next time for that very reason.

Tyres are a performance item and I buy based on their performance in my use, not the performance of a totally unrelated tyre used in a hugely specialised niche like F1.

[djos]

Performance is a big deal for me too, I usually spend around $800 for a set of 4 tires for our cars when I could easily buy some cheap Korean tires for ~$400.

[Artur Craft]

My point is that series are tyre limited, which is inevitable since the cars are capable of being pushed for an entire race distance without falling apart. I don't like how the word 'push' has been hijacked to mean going as close as possible to the theoretical maximum pace as long as possible, driving at the tyre limit all race is still pushing in my mind.

Going by what the drivers say, they do push, ie, "go as close as possible to the theoretical maximum pace as long as possible" in WEC. The thing is that the tyres level of grip will slightly decrease during the course of that. On F1, if you do that, your tyres sort of "fall apart", so you sort of drive to deltas, which is something that WEC really doesn't have to.

As for PIRELLI, I don't think they are INCAPABLE of manufacturing high endurance tyres and in fact, I believe it is probably more difficult to create the kind of tyres that they are manufacturing for F1 right now. Current tyres might require some kind of complex algorithm in terms of mixture required to create these kind of short span tyres. It might indeed be easy to manufacture high endurance tyres. PIRELLI is serving to what FOM/FIA want them to do.

Rubbers will naturally degrade quite fastly. There is no need for a complex algorithm to make that happen. Endurance tyres, for racing, are one of the most difficult things to do. If you do it on a street tyre, it's not as big a problem because the levels of grip are relatively low anyway(if you produced high grip tyres for street cars, it would get dangerous with some people cornering/braking over the top of the acceptable, for a street enviroment).

For racing, however, if you make an endurance tyre, it will still need to provide as much grip as possible. It's very easy to make a very hard tyre that will last for quite long. It's very difficult, though, to make this same tyre with high levels of grip, as well. That's what differs one tyre company from the other. The bigger companies, like Michelin and Bridgestone, put far more money into R&D. They have more qualified chemists/engineers and in more number, as well as more facilities to develop cutting edge products.

To make a top performance tyre, you'll need to come up a "magical"(figuratively speaking) chemical compound which has very high resistance and, at the same time, high flexibility. There is a myriad of base polymers's combination, as well as fillers to compose the rubber molecular structure.

If making such tyres were easy, you would see people competing with Michelin on endurance racing, but nobody have commited to it in long time and the Frenchies have won Le Mans for decades now. Do you remember what happened to Bridgestone(a much more capable manufacturer than Pirelli) in 2005, when tyres had to last qualifying and a full GP in F1?

I buy tyres that give me the performance I need from my vehicle. That generally means good braking grip and, in the case of my Range Rover, the ability to go off road whilst also being good enough for serious on road mileage too. I'll probably buy Pirelli Scorpion ATR next time for that very reason.

Tyres are a performance item and I buy based on their performance in my use, not the performance of a totally unrelated tyre used in a hugely specialised niche like F1.

Concerning Pirelli, everytime they were in tyre wars, they were trashed by Michelin, GoodYear... And their street tyres, usually, don't do well on reviews.

I sure as hell refuse to buy their products, I recently put continental tires on both our cars.

Continental is only smaller than Bridgestone/Firestone, Michelin/BF Goodrich, GoodYear/Dunlop. Their street tyres reviews are second to none on many types of tyres. You did a very good purchase, I would say, if you got if for a reasonable price.

On topic, The first 30 mins of WEC was some really exciting racing. The different classes add a bit I think as at least you see a lot of cars passing cars, even if it's being lapped. Following the first 30 though I'd say it was no more interesting than F1.

You're kidding right? I mean, you saw a lack of action of 15 min and turned off the tv, I would guess.

After that first 30 min, there was several LMP1s battles. Just to name 3: a good battle between Lotterer and Jani(or maybe other at the #18) in which Lotterer made brilliant defense on the outside of Les Combes. Then, there was the awesome side-by-side of Wurz and Bonanomi at Eau Rouge among other things in their battle. Finally, I mention the Treluyer/Jani battle in which the #7 passed the #18 at La Source, then the Porsche got it back on the Kemmel Straight. Coming to S2, Treluyer made an outstanding overtake on the outside of Fagnes. There were others on LMP1 and many others on LMP2 and GT

Silverstone and Spa were head and shoulders better than Bahrain 2014, a very hyped F1 race, imho.(sorry, people DRSing each other is not my thing). But each to his own, I understand one needs some sort of patience to follow an endurance race because you won't get continuous battles for 6 or 24 hours.

[machin]

The position of the Audi's wing mirrors on their low downforce setup has got to be pushing the rules to the limit!

(image from Mulsannes Corner)