Michelin to comeback in 2017 IF 18 inches rims

[sgth0mas]

That's why there are Safety multipliers and many very smart People with a truckload of experience doing these Simulations. And it is not as if we are adding a 100 Pound Lead weight on each wheel.
Come on Guys, do some of you really think F1 Teams with all these Top Tier Engineers are to stupid to build a Suspension fit for 18 Inch Wheels?

A road car will have large safety factors, i cannot imagine an F1 car will because its supposed to be on the limit. Do you really think this design activity is trivial? Nobody said they cant design it...but do you really think its a better allocation of resources to work on designing a new suspension just so its tires look more like a road car? Why would anyone want to waste more money making these cars more vanilla. How many times have you designed a mechanical structure and expected it to work correctly in the field without substantial testing?

[Thunder]

You're drifting off Topic, which was if there would be extra Tests needed for the Teams in Order to prevent Suspension failures.

I won't discuss all the "yadayadayada im for it" vs "yadayadayada i'm against it" again here. There are enough discussions around even here on F1T. I'm tired of it.

[sgth0mas]

You're drifting off Topic, which was if there would be extra Tests needed for the Teams in Order to prevent Suspension failures.

I won't discuss all the "yadayadayada im for it" vs "yadayadayada i'm against it" again here. There are enough discussions around even here on F1T. I'm tired of it.

I would run away from answering that too if i were you. But thats fine we can leave extra testing alone for now regardless of how essential it would be and focus on the other questions i asked:

Do you truly believe its a good allocation of resources to redesign a suspension just to make the tires looks more like road car tires?

Do you really think a suspension redesign is that trivial?

How many mechanical structures have you designed without real world testing?

Im asking this to drive the point home that this should be the absolute last focus for F1. If im sauber, lotus, FI, williams or any other limited budget team, the last thing i would want to spend precious resources on is redesigning suspension for no true performance benefit. It actually takes the look of the car in the wrong direction...less exotic and more road car. Taking resources away from other developments that truly benefit performance, and using them on something that only makes it look more "road car" is absurd.

[ChrisF1]

Do you truly believe its a good allocation of resources to redesign a suspension just to make the tires looks more like road car tires?

So you think it's purely aesthetics and not perhaps that Michelin want to do testing, branding and marketing on a common wheel size?

You google BMW M4 Wheel Size and what is the first result? Michelin.

Wheel size of the M4 on the front? 18 inch.

I'm not saying this is the reason, but performance rubber on 13 inch wheels is antique. The only cars that use 13" wheels these days are the cheapest bog standard budget tyred vehicles, and they're not the market for a performance tyre manufacturer.

I'll just leave this here:

http://www.michelin.co.uk/tyres/brands/ferrari

[sgth0mas]

Im talking from a teams perspective...as indicated by the mention of budget, specific team names and testing.

I think its a bad idea to keep pushing F1 cars in the direction of road cars...there are already loads of road car series and it will just make the series even more boring.

[bhall II]

So you think it's purely aesthetics and not perhaps that Michelin want to do testing, branding and marketing on a common wheel size?

Well, it's not purely aesthetic. Larger, heavier wheels will make the cars slower due to increased rotational inertia.

Otherwise, yeah, there's nothing about 18-inch tires that's significantly better than 13-inch tires. They're just different.

[Thunder]

Okay, first off i know it's a horrible mistake to answer to sgthomas's post after that first Sentence but hey, what's life without a little Fun?

Question 1: Yes, better put Money in that than in a different Front Wing Winglet that no one notices and that brings 1 thousands of a second.

2: In Formula 1 Terms, yes.

3: No real world Testing? lol ---> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SPflUyT1rQ
And for your question "What about the smaller Teams?" Well some Teams don't have a Wind Tunnel but still use one. I'll leave it to you to connect the Dots.

Like i said i am tired of these discussions. You don't like it and nothing will change that. I'm fine with that.

Now rip me apart all you like, i don't care.

[lebesset]

before pirelli came back to F1 THEY said they would like 18 inch wheels
however , despite what people seem to think,F1 has proved to be excellent marketing for them so that their premium tyre sales , as well as their profits , have increased substancially
for that reason they are content with the status quo , whereas michelin are not content with their share of the most profitable market
first michelin say they will only come back if there is tyre competition ; now they say they will come back as the single supplier as long as they can supply the tyres they want in the size they want

ain't going to happen unless they offer tyres so cheap they can't be refused ...no way are they going to do that
this is just a publicity stunt to get in the media

[Tim.Wright]

Aesthetics discussion aside, if the teams really are concerned about the costs and risks associated with redesigning a cookie cutter push rod passive double wishbone suspension then the sport has taken a wrong turn somewhere...

[Andres125sx]

I really don´t bother about rims size, or tyre manufacturer, but I bother about current perfomance of tyres.

I know it was FIA who asked for tyres suffering artificial wear, but not sure if they were trying to reach current point with tyres that force drivers to corner slower than they could

IMO this is biggest problem of current F1 and should be solved, a race where drivers can´t drive to the limit is not a race


Add to that wet tyres are simply a joke. FP3 was embarrasing, it was really far from a heavy rain, and drivers were suffering too much when aquaplanning was not a problem because there was not enough water. With that conditions they should be driving pefectly safe, but they couldn´t. Marc Gene said for the spanish tv wet tyres should work, or should be manufactured to work at around 40ºC (not sure if he said 30-40 or 40-50), and this tyres can´t reach that temperature, so they simply don´t work

Not sure if Pirelli is happy with the image they´re providing, if some people here say they´re increasing sales then it must be ok for them, but I peferctly understand Michelin POV.

IMO if Michelin can provide better tyres, more stable tyres for dry conditions so drivers can push hard for the whole stint, and usable tyres for wet coditions, I don´t care if the rims are 13, 18, 9 or 23 inches, they will be welcome.

[sgth0mas]

Aesthetics discussion aside, if the teams really are concerned about the costs and risks associated with redesigning a cookie cutter push rod passive double wishbone suspension then the sport has taken a wrong turn somewhere...

At least half of the grid is concerned with the costs associated with their current activities that are intended to have a direct performance impact. So yes they would also have concern over costs associated with redesigning something that isnt intended to drop lap times. Why would any team want to add cost just to throw bigger rims on the car unless they know they will gain a competitive advantage?

And yes...the sport surely has taken a wrong turn.

[Andres125sx]

Aesthetics discussion aside, if the teams really are concerned about the costs and risks associated with redesigning a cookie cutter push rod passive double wishbone suspension then the sport has taken a wrong turn somewhere...

At least half of the grid is concerned with the costs associated with their current activities that are intended to have a direct performance impact. So yes they would also have concern over costs associated with redesigning something that isnt intended to drop lap times. Why would any team want to add cost just to throw bigger rims on the car unless they know they will gain a competitive advantage?

And yes...the sport surely has taken a wrong turn.

Sorry sgthomas but you´re wrong, teams don´t care at all about laptimes, it´s only some fans who worry about that, and sincerely I´ll never understand that obsesion of comparing laptimes with past years...

Teams only worry about improving laptimes compared to their rivals, but they don´t care at all if that laptime is higher or lower than past season. And improving compared to their rivals can be achieved redesigning a suspension for a slower wheel the same way as redesigning any other part of the car that would make it faster. The smarter engineer will take advantage anycase

[Jersey Tom]

Do you truly believe its a good allocation of resources to redesign a suspension just to make the tires looks more like road car tires?

So you think it's purely aesthetics and not perhaps that Michelin want to do testing, branding and marketing on a common wheel size?

You google BMW M4 Wheel Size and what is the first result? Michelin.

Wheel size of the M4 on the front? 18 inch.

I'm not saying this is the reason, but performance rubber on 13 inch wheels is antique.

In the consumer performance market I'd say the movement toward 18+ inch wheel diameter is mainly aesthetic and driven by marketing. From my recollection (having worked as an engineer for a major tire company), the vehicle OEM doesn't even solicit feedback on this topic from the tire manufacturer(s). They say, "Ok here's a mule car for a new platform, wheel size will be X, suspension and springs are pretty well set, we want the handling to be like Y, figure out some tires to make it work." It's actually pretty interesting as a process, reverse of what you'd do as a race team engineering your car around a given tire.

Anyway as for testing or development on a common wheel size - I don't think so. At least I don't think there would be any carry-over between an 18" F1 tire and an 18" BMW tire. There's no relevance between the two - requirements are entirely different even for a "sporty" consumer car.

My guess would be it's just a cost and logistics thing in their race tire factory. They may have limited 13" radial build equipment left, and what's there is probably quite old - so for them it's probably easier to use the presumably larger inventory of build machines for larger bead diameter. For other tire manufacturers, who knows - might be easier to do 13 or 15" bead dia F1 tires.

Personally I don't think it matters what bead dia wheels F1 uses, and I don't necessarily think there's anything "better" about 18". It's arbitrary. I think what's more critical is for F1 to figure out it's identity before slinging more and more changes every year in desperate attempts to get more fan engagement.

[ESPImperium]

Personally, i want a tyre war based around 16 inch diameter wheels. As the car market I'm in (Vauxhall Corsa, Nissan Juke, Toyota Yarris, Renault Clio) reality, all come with a 16 inch wheel.

I tyre war with 16 inch diameter wheels with new sporting and technical regs with limited active suspension would be ideal.

We need to look at giving the cars more grip, they need about two seconds more from the tyres and suspension. The rest of the 4-5 can come from aero and engine. The drivers need to be able to push, drive aggressively and race and not manage too much to be honest as id ditch half of the electronics the cars need to run.

[lebesset]

I really don´t bother about rims size, or tyre manufacturer, but I bother about current perfomance of tyres.

I know it was FIA who asked for tyres suffering artificial wear, but not sure if they were trying to reach current point with tyres that force drivers to corner slower than they could

IMO this is biggest problem of current F1 and should be solved, a race where drivers can´t drive to the limit is not a race


Add to that wet tyres are simply a joke. FP3 was embarrasing, it was really far from a heavy rain, and drivers were suffering too much when aquaplanning was not a problem because there was not enough water. With that conditions they should be driving pefectly safe, but they couldn´t. Marc Gene said for the spanish tv wet tyres should work, or should be manufactured to work at around 40ºC (not sure if he said 30-40 or 40-50), and this tyres can´t reach that temperature, so they simply don´t work

Not sure if Pirelli is happy with the image they´re providing, if some people here say they´re increasing sales then it must be ok for them, but I peferctly understand Michelin POV.

IMO if Michelin can provide better tyres, more stable tyres for dry conditions so drivers can push hard for the whole stint, and usable tyres for wet coditions, I don´t care if the rims are 13, 18, 9 or 23 inches, they will be welcome.

unfortunately you didn't ask why the wet tyres didn't work well here ...seems like marc gene doesn't know too much about surfacing
F1 wet tyres are designed to operate on the sort of surface generally used on race tracks ; for reasons of climate that sort of surface won't survive at a circuit at 800 metres altitude and which is covered with snow and ice for 3 months of the year
living in such a climate makes one aware of such details
can hardy expect a tyre manufaturer to make a tyre suitable for one track at the expense of all the others