This video explaining the 2016 Formula 1 tire regulations will make your head spin.

Why do Formula One teams need to employ armies of strategists and simulation engineers?  A few minutes into this clip and you might be asking yourself why it is that the brightest minds in motorsport have to chase after this kind of problem in the first place.

As you watch,  keep in mind teams will have picked compounds for the Australian GP in the middle of December, 2 months before the 2016 cars will have even rolled on their first test session.

In theory this will allow a greater "spread" in tire compounds to make more teams happy.  Over the past few seasons, Ferrari and Force India were hoping to softer tires while Red Bull and Mercedes like the harder compounds.Pirelli has tended to play it safe favoring the latter.

What this will mean in practice, remains to be seen.   For sure Steve Matchett will have his hand full explaining it to American audiences.

Save of the day: Tire failure at 180mph on the Daytona banking

Guaranteed to haunt you next time you're flat out in your RSR on the 31 degree Daytona banking...

Do you know how to use your tires properly?

Last minute call to register for our friend Ross Bentley's Get Smart About Your Tires & Drive Faster webinar this week end.

Photo via ARN

You know your four tires connect you to the track and they play a huge role in your car’s speed.

But do you know how they really work?

Do you know how to get the most out of your tires?

In the Get Smart About Your Tires & Drive Faster webinar, Paul Haney and Ross Bentley bring you technical explanations you can understand about how tires work, plus practical tips so you can drive faster.

The webinar series consists of four 90-minutes sessions presented by Paul Haney, author of The Racing & High-Performance Tire, and hosted by Ross Bentley, who will add his personal experience of more than three decades of race driving and coaching to Paul’s three decades of engineering experience.

Here’s your chance to gather over 60 years of experience in just 6 hours, which will ultimately lead to you being faster around the track.

Each session is a one-hour presentation, with thirty minutes for questions.
The webinar series runs on March 30, 31, April 6, 7; 8:30-10:00pm Eastern/5:30-7:00pm Pacific.

More info HERE at SpeedSecrets.com

What warms up your tires?

If you've ever wondered how much of a factor  heat from the brakes is in heating tires on an F1 car, look no further than this video of Paul Di Resta's warm up lap through that cool infrared camera.

Several interesting bits:   At the very first chicane he locks up just a bit and you can see what a dramatic hotspot that creates.
You can see how much the airflow cools the rubber but also how quickly it lights up in the corners,  Interesting that you see the inside wheel light up under braking.

Finally as the car comes to a stanstill on the grid, you see the effect of brake heat.  Check out how at the green , you can see the cold spot from where the tire was touching the asphalt!

All that heat though was not enough to prevent Di Rest from locking up into the Variante della Roggia (T4...) and smashing into Grosjean's Lotus, which miraculously survived the impact.

TAKING THE TEMPERATURE OF TESTGATE

The FIA International Tribunal is meeting June 20th to hear the case from Pirelli and Mercedes and deal punishment if it deems it necessary.    

Mercedes are expected to show evidence they had a written authorization from someone in the FIA to proceed with the test,  something that would be deeply embarrassing for the governing body.   Race director Charlie Whiting has been mentioned more than once,  if the authorization came from him it would be especially troubling.

There are two issues at play here with regards to any presumed advantage the Brackley team may have gained in those 1000 km of "private, not secret" testing:  Tire knowledge and track time.    Our technical editor Filippo Zanier has some thoughts on that and  the weak performance from Lotus in the last two races.

By Filippo Zanier:

After the Canadian GP, I found myself thinking about how the Pirelli-Mercedes testgate has monopolized the attention of both media and fans lately. While I think it's understandable, and that certain people calling this "a storm in a teacup" are probably driven by interest, I feel that all the controversy has distracted us a lot from what was happening on track.

What we saw both in Monaco and Montréal has a lot to do with tyres, but that would be very true even if that ill-famed Barcelona test had never existed. And couldn't we pretend it didn't, just for a while? In the end, If Pirelli are true (and I hope they are), the new spec tyres won't be available before the Belgian Grand Prix, so whatever "future spec" rubber Mercedes tested in Barcelona still hasn't come into play. Sure, the extra mileage didn't hurt them, and there's a chance the new rear suspension geometry was tested there, but do you really believe that's the only reason why they won in Monaco and were quite ok in Montréal? Well I don't.

What I believe, is that what we saw in the last two GPs was very track specific. Mercedes and Red Bull gaining shape, Ferrari and Lotus losing some, that had a lot to do with the fact that both Monaco and Canada aren't permanent circuits. At a city track like Monte Carlo, or a semi-permanent venue like Montréal, tarmac is very different from what drivers find at other tracks. It's not as grainy and it's worn by everyday use, hence less grippy and much less aggressive on tyres. Add to that the track temperatures, colder then expected at both tracks, and suddenly you have a valid explaination of why tyre wear issues seemed solved on the F1 W04, or the reason why in Canada Vettel and Red Bull got back to an utterly dominant form.

Today I was lucky enough to have a conversation with a racing driver to prepare a Le Mans story for an Italian mag, and he gave my thoughts some support.
The guy is a former F1 driver that is now a top runner in the GTE class, and is still in touch with many Circus players. What he told me sounded more or less like this: "Everybody in F1 knows that Red Bull has a clear edge on the competition in terms of downforce. In Montréal and Monaco that proved to be a big advantage for Vettel but with this year's tyres, at other tracks that could even be an hindrance".

My "mystery man" knows what he's saying. The paddock rumormill has already been talking about the RB9's huge downforce figures, often citing secret data gathered by Pirelli as the source, but hints of that impressive aero load can also be found in numbers that aren't secret at all, the top speeds from the 2013 races. Looking at the speed trap data, the Red Bulls are always slowest among the top cars: sometimes the gap isn't so big (it was only 4 kph in Australia), sometimes it's astonishing like in Barcelona, where Alonso was 12 kph faster than Vettel on the main straight. So, like last year, Mr. Newey was happy to trade some speed for more downforce, but sure he wasn't expecting Pirelli to make it worthless.
Unluckily, he soon discovered that the 2013 Italian rubber doesn't cope well with the huge loads his car is generating. The RB9 is bloody quick, no doubt about it, but when it's driven like it should tyres overheat quickly and start suffering from heavy wear much earlier then expected, ending in the four pit-stops we saw in Barcelona and in Christian Horner publicly ranting against the Italian company. And at that time, the Mercedes test wasn't even on the radar.

In Monaco and Montréal, the story was different. On two tracks that put less strain on tyres, and in colder temperatures, overheating wasn't an issue at all. On the contrary, Red Bull managed to bring the right amount of heat in their rubber earlier than the competition, an advantage that proved to be crucial. Furthermore, being able to unleash all of their downforce without having to worry about tyres allowed them to have a better planted car, with positive effects on tyre wear.
This also explains why the Lotus-Renault was far off the pace in Canada: the car that so far had been the most gentle on tyres was too gentle for those asphalt conditions, struggling for grip all the time.

So, what should we expect from now on? Silverstone being a proper track, with hi-speed corners and recently laid tarmac, I believe that we'll see Mercedes struggling with heavy tyre wear once again. The same goes for Red Bull: on the british track their downforce will prove very useful, but how will that impact on their tyre wear and race strategy? I see them topping the timesheets, but will that be enough to win the race? Luckily, we just have to wait a few days to know...

High Wear Tires, Not Just Formula 1

While I agree with Lotus F1 principal Eric Boullier that it's "weird to change the length of a football pitch at half time to accommodate players who can't run as fast",  there are less explored  aspects of current tire performance trends that reach beyond F1 into feeder series and will have a potential effect on future racers.

Filippo Zanier has worked in motor sport as a reporter and as Series Coordinator and PR Manager for AutoGP World Series and for the Gulf 12 Hours at Yas Marina.   He has been a frequent commenter here and has recently started The Outside Pass.    We are very happy to have Filippo contribute to Axis of Oversteer.


GP3 Getting Tyred Too by Filippo Zanier

While the delamination issues suffered between Bahrain and Catalunya forced Pirelli to admit that there may be something wrong with their tyre construction, in Spain we assisted to another race weekend dominated by rubber.

Engineer-to-driver radio messages were a litany of tyre saving advices, whilst those from drivers to the pit walls where a string of tyre-related yelling.  Even Alonso’s win, despite an evident advantage in performance/wear balance, was in jeopardy before the last pit-stop due to a delamination hint that was spotted just in time by the Ferrari crew.

Neither fun nor exciting if you ask me, and getting worse one GP after the other, which is what should really worry both paddock and fans.
But what’s even more worrying is the effect that this new joint FIA/Pirelli approach to motor racing is having on the feeder championships, namely GP3.

Barcelona saw the debut of the new car, with improved aero and a 400 bhp V6 engine, a big step forward compared to last year’s turbo powerplant. The performance gain was sensible and in winter testing, with cold track temperatures, drivers were amazed. Anyway, May is considerably hotter and in Barcelona the attention quickly switched to worries concerning tyre wear.

The races, Saturday’s one in particular, proved that the issue was real: Arden’s rising star Daniil Kyvat dropped to P20 after running as high as 4th and his team mate Sainz Jr crossed the line in 15th. Art’s Facu Regalia posted a good sixth time in Quali, but in the race he had to retire with two laps to go after losing a large chunk of tread from his left front, the tyre which has to cope with a tremendous stress in Turn 9, the infamous Campsa corner (see the image opening the post).

Things went a bit better in Race 2, mainly because drivers were well aware of the problem and nursed their rubber to the line, but at the end of the weekend everybody agreed that the situation was far from ideal, and that pushing for more than a few laps would have ended in tyres falling to pieces.

So what’s happening? As F1 has turned racing into tyre management, its feeder championships are doing the same. GP2 went on that path two years ago and they’re holding the line, and now it’s GP3′s turn.
But is that the right thing to do? The average age of the GP3 field is 19 years old, and most drivers have F.Renault 2.0, F3 or the old spec GP3 as a background, so they are tackling their first season on high-powered machinery: is tyre management what they should really worry about?
GP3 already offers very little track time (45 mins. Practice, 30 mins. Quali, 2 Races of 30 mins. each) wouldn’t it be better if drivers could just be allowed to show their talent and outright speed, their consistency and focus, their ability to push from the lights to the flag? These young guns still have a lot to prove, forcing them to drive slower to preserve the tyres means diverting the attention from what should really matter at their age.

In the next few years, when they’ll graduate to GP2, they’ll have plenty of time to get frustrated because of tyres but for now, please, just let them race.

That's A Lot Of Tire Crud

Photos: Antarc/Flickr

Drivers weren't kidding when they complained about tire degradation in the recent tests.   I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels tire klag is the scourge of F1 racing, turning every track into a one car wide toboggan run.

Rain tires

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The repeated postponing of the Nascar Daytona 500 due to weather this week, along with a good bit of public ribbing gloating from every other race series on the planet, has people thinking about rain and tires. The NASA clip above, aside from making you question how anyone survived 1960's automobile technology, tells you physics have not changed but tire technology has come a long long way since.

New rubber compounds and computer designed tread patterns have made it possible to design road car tires which are quite safe to drive in the rain at speeds 1960's NASA scientists might not have believed possible.

At high speed, the name of the game is water elimination and a modern road car tire will expell about 13 liters /3.5 gallons of water per second.
The ultimate expression of wet weather tire of the moment, the Pirelli Cinturato Formula 1 will expel about 60 liters /16 gallons of water per second at 300km/h. To put it another way, on a minute and a half lap, say at a high speed track like Silverstone, a single Formula One car traveling at an average speed of 200 km/h will pump something in the order of 14,000 liters / 3700 gallons of water per lap. Mind boggling.

But even that is not always enough. Water, like in the 1960's still cannot be compressed, and when the water gets deeper than the tread blocks, like in Montreal in 2011, you just have to park it.

That's rare, the more typical occurrence is that track conditions change during a race, making spectators happy and tire engineers and strategist earn their keep.

Martin Brundle explains what Axis readers probably already know...



Not just F1 of course, every racing series (except for NASCAR) races in the rain with reasonable safety, including at Daytona...



We all benefit from trickle down and today's top brands can produce tires that are quite amazing. Last year, at the One Lap of America we scored a .825G side load on the wet skidpad using off the shelf road car rubber, not an exciting video but a figure that would have certainly impressed those 1960's NASA engineers!

Formula 1: Pirelli responds to tire choice questions

I think this is very good for fans, getting to hear directly from the top. Love it.

Pirelli's Motorsport director Paul Hembery responds to recent mumblings about tires being a contributing cause of a boring race at Valencia (hint, nothing could help that track) and a bit of whining from Ferrari about the lack of a "supersoft" option at Silverstone.

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Pressure!

Thank you Dunlop for these of technical videos...keep them coming and go into even more detail in the future!



home

Graining.

You've heard a lot about it. If you track, you certainly have experienced it but do you really know what it is and why it happens? This video by Dunlop will help.



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Pirelli Personalized.

Not so easy finding ways to get attention in the tire world but Pirelli has come up with a pretty cool one: personalized tires.

This bit of extra bling is, for now, limited to our 2 wheeled tracktard friends who use the Pirelli Diablo Rosso Corsa. You can customize a label online and Pirelli will deliver the personalized set through their online direct distribution (in Europe only for now). The Rosso Corsa is an extreme performance tire derived from WSBK designs.

Pirelli is one of the companies rumored to be taking over from Bridgestone as the next supplier to Formula 1, a combination that might work especially given Pirelli's recent focus on "Green" racing and road tires.

As for DOT R track tires, I had tried the P-Zero Corsa some years ago with some pretty mixed results, that tire had been replaced with the Corsa System, a design closer to a regular road tire. Now Pirelli has introduced a new "trackday" contender, the P-Zero Trofeo. Rather than the Corsa's wavy, motorcycle inspired grooves, the Trofeo has a dual section mold closer to, say, the Michelin PSC and others.

Like the P-Zero GrandAm tire it is free from highly aromatic oils and conforms to coming road noise regulations.

For us track junkies, the more options the better, so bring it!

O.P.T.: a tracktard tip

After two days at Summit Point my brand new Kumho v710 looked like what you see at the bottom of the above picture. A heat gun, a good quality spatula and about a half hour later, I removed 2.5lbs (1.4kg) of Other People's Tires from mine. I think this will become part of my track routine.

And here is the rest of it.

The most important performance items for your car.

are the tires... but you knew that already of course.







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Toyo RA-1, still the track day king.

Our readers have spoken: the venerable Toyo RA-1 is still the track day king. Not surprising given its excellent price/performance/wear ratings. However, the king is now officially dead and it will be interesting to see how its replacement the Toyo R888 will do. The 888 has been available outside the US market for some time now so I expect no surprises, except maybe that Toyo would make a size that actually fits my car, that would be sweet.

The Michelin Pilot Sport Cup had a strong second place showing. I was surprised to see so few votes for the Hoosier and Kumho.

thanks for voting!

What tires do you use for track days?

Whatever the car came with	8 (9%)
Michelin Sport Cup	14 (17%)
Pirelli Corsa	1 (1%)
Hoosier R6	8 (9%)
Kumho V710	5 (6%)
Kumho Victoracers	1 (1%)
Kumho V700 Ecsta	1 (1%)
Toyo RA1	25 (30%)
Toyo R888	7 (8%)
Hankook	4 (4%)
Yokohama 048	5 (6%)
Avon Tech R	0 (0%)
BFGoodrich R1	2 (2%)
Full Slicks	6 (7%)
Other	18 (22%)

Votes so far: 81

More from New Zealand

Two short clips:

In the first...sometimes it's better to JustGoHome:




Then, next time you hear an F1 driver complain about tire choice...

BFGoodrich sponsorship please!

These guys really made a great pitch for it! Very well done video.

Science at work.

This is too silly not to share...Top Gear would be proud.

Tahyah Testo.

BANG!

The European Formula 1 GP is coming up this week end, everyone remember 2005 and Kimi's suspension failure on the last lap?

Watch the sheer violence when the McLaren carbon fiber suspension finally gives way after being tortured by the huge vibrations caused by a flat spot earlier in the race. At the time the rule was that tires could not be changed during the race... good thing forthe wheel tethers rule. Partly because of this incident the tire rule was modified and then dropped.

The Stig would get sent home....

Posted for CG

Session 1 - 3rd lap, Pocono Double Infield course:




Black flag called on the Back Straight. Message from Track Marshall: "You almost lost it in several places"

...CG gives the logical rebutt...

"I don't care if you are in control or not, listen, we don't do sideways here..."

".... Yes Sir.... "and CG proceeded to pussyfoot for most of the rest of the day.


Seriously, I don't blame them. How can they know I'm not another "IflySolo"?

The reality is the 275/315 Nitto setup sucks in my non adjustable 997S, and the only way to drive it fast is with turn-in oversteer that occasionally ends up in full corner length power slides ( just slowing down would be so ungraceful!...).

I did improve my best double infield time by 2/10ths (1:44.1) but I know I would have been much faster on the RA1s... I just hope the new R888 are as good and not similar to the Nittos.


AC adds:

I don't see the big deal, especially if there is nobody around. That turn is a very safe place to spin if one had to choose... Here is more from that turn...