Softer tyres tipped to reverse F1’s decline in overtaking

24 comments on “Softer tyres tipped to reverse F1’s decline in overtaking”

1. 

   Markp
   19th February 2018, 0:07

   Tyre cliff is back? Pirelli will get a lot of pain for that. Problem is if the tyre is designed for 30 laps teams will push for 40, they always push the boundaries to make 1 less stop. Better to let teams run a whole race on 1 tyre but degradation is such that a pit stop theoretically means race is 10 seconds faster. Other cars get in the way so will 10 second advantage be enough? Overtaking is possible with a Ricciardo divebomb mentality so a tyre for the race?
   1. 

      GongTong (@gongtong)
      19th February 2018, 18:30

      Whilst the sport has a single tyre supplier, that supplier will never allow the rubber to do a race distance. If it’s the case, the commentators will have no reason to mention the tyres at all, thus ending any and all commercial value of a manufacturer supplying tyres to the sport.
   2. 

      Gintoki Sakata (@gin-san)
      19th February 2018, 21:35

      This is possible, but I think this depends on how Pirelli decide the tire compounds throughout the year. Remember, this year they are starting to select non-consecutive compounds, like in China where the medium/soft/ultrasoft allocation skips the supersoft compound. This should provide some difference in strategy but it could just produce strategy overtakes which are generally not that fun to watch.
2. 

   gus maia
   19th February 2018, 0:10

   Most important is that tyres foster different perfomance during different period on the race.
3. 

   DB-C90 (@dbradock)
   19th February 2018, 0:23

   I really don’t see they tyres making that much difference.

   Teams very quickly work out the optimum strategy and they pretty much all use the same tyres and strategies so for most of the race their tyres and the condition of them are the same.

   On the very rare occasion when someone uses a counter strategy we’ll see overtaking but we have seen that in previous seasons too.

   So what’s different?
   1. 

      AliceD (@aliced)
      19th February 2018, 11:05

      There will be more pitstops. More pitstops means more time where one car is on fresh tyres vs another car on very old tyres. So the car on fresh tyres is 1 or 2 seconds a lap faster than the one on old tyres = overtake. Then the car which was overtaken pits, gets fresh tyres, then overtakes the car which is now in front because the car behind now has the fresh tyre 1-2 second a lap = overtake. Then next pitstop, same thing again, overtake, overtake, overtake.

      Hooray, so much overtaking makes the spectacle so much better.
   2. 

      Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
      19th February 2018, 16:34

      My thinking too. Overtaking is related to difference in power and the time available. The less difference in power or the less time and you have the less overtaking. Because F1 has aerodynamic rules that allow the cars to leave a large wake of turbulent or dirty air behind them, then you need more time or a big difference in power for a car to over take, so I guess this new tyre could make a slight difference, but I’m not expecting a lot of overtaking to suddenly occur, mainly because you haven’t fixed the problem of cars trailing a large turbulent wake of air behind them.
      I don’t see cars suddenly doing lots of pit stops because each one is 20 to 30 seconds off the track, which usually means returning to the track behind the cars you had overtaken a while back, so now you have to go through all that effort again just to get back to where you were before, and then hopefully there’s enough life in the new tyres to allow you to gain a few places.
      The big questions will be how much difference is there between the different power units and how prepared are teams to let their drivers push the engines in modes that reduce its life expectancy.
4. 

   Strontium (@strontium)
   19th February 2018, 0:35

   It wasn’t fun watching cars unable to overtake last year because of the aerodynamics, but one thing I loved was seeing drivers push without the tyres degrading after five laps. It’s incredibly disappointing that they want to regress back to that.

   Seeing a car on fresh tyres drive past a car with degraded tyres is not exciting. Pit strategies and the undercut are so well rehearsed and predictable now it’s not exciting either – especially when the commentators tell you the outcome several laps before it happens
   1. 

      ECWDanSelby (@ecwdanselby)
      19th February 2018, 8:43

      F1 is the dog chasing its tail with many issues – see ‘aerodynamics’
   2. 

      Dom (@3dom)
      19th February 2018, 13:29

      Completely agree @strontium
5. 

   StefMeister (@stefmeister)
   19th February 2018, 1:32

   I’d much rather have tyres that drivers can actually push fairly hard through a stint. If that’s results in less pit shops then so what, At least that encourages more actual racing than putting the emphasis more on overcut/undercut pit passing.

   Seeing a car on fresher tyres cruise up behind someone at 2+ seconds a lap and then cruise by with ease just isn’t that exciting or interesting to me. Focus should be on competitive, hard fought and actually exciting overtaking rather than all this artificially created quantity driven nonsense that just isn’t that exciting to watch imo.
   1. 

      SteveR
      19th February 2018, 5:29

      Want to make it simpler and cheaper and more interesting? Have three (3) compounds available for each race. Let the teams choose the tires they want to run. Don’t require two compounds during the race, but if the teams want to sure why not? This would save a chunk of change for Pirelli and make the racing more interesting. In fact, keep the same three compounds for the entire season; let the teams figure it out.
   2. 

      Dom (@3dom)
      19th February 2018, 13:31

      Took the words right out of my mouth @stefmeister
6. 

   Mashiat (@mashiat)
   19th February 2018, 6:15

   Have 1 tyre that is mainly for qualifying, which is extremely quick, but can last 5-10 laps, and 2 compounds which can both last quite long. Thus, the frontrunners will have to pit sooner than the others, putting them in traffic, which will make the racing more interesting. Not to mention someone could just pop on a set of the softest tyres and try to go for a 7 lap stint in which they are 2-3 seconds quicker than those around them.
7. 

   Illusive (@illusive)
   19th February 2018, 6:22

   I am pretty sure we’d be watching Newey team racing in F1, the creator of the legendary Newey supercars had Adrian Newey been born 120 years ago and Enzo Ferrari would be working in one of those teams if he was born today.
   1. 

      Egonovi
      19th February 2018, 10:29

      I like your comment and support for a genius like Newey, @illusive

      But it’s more likely that Newey’s grandfather would have died anonymously and poor trying his whole life selling the ideas of streamlining, vortices, and other aerodynamic marvels to people who couldn’t care less.
      Or maybe he could have helped the UK winning a 2nd America’s Cup.
      1. 

         DaveD (@daved)
         19th February 2018, 19:22

         Good point Egonovi and @illusive
         But I have an alternate theory: If Newey had been alive back then, the Spitfilre would have been 10% faster and more agile even with an underpowered engine :)
8. 

   Dewald Nel (@ho3n3r)
   19th February 2018, 6:48

   That’s pretty disappointing. More overtakes because of a 3 second tyre deficit(20 lap softs vs. 0 lap ultrasofts) is worse racing, not better. Last year was pretty much perfect.
   1. 

      anon
      19th February 2018, 7:13

      @ho3n3r, it would seem that you were content with the tyres, others here complained about the tyres being too hard and wanted Pirelli to shift to tyres that had higher degradation rates so they moved to two stop strategies (perhaps also believing that the drivers would push harder if they split the races into three shorter stints than two longer stints).

      There is, to some extent, arguably a political angle in this too as a consequence of Pirelli having been a bit conservative with their tyres in 2017 – Mercedes and Ferrari were fine with the harder tyres, but other teams tended to find it difficult to bring them up to temperature. That was why we saw a fairly intense period of lobbying from Red Bull, Haas and others at the start of the 2017 season for Pirelli to bring softer tyres for the rest of the season, and probably also explains the shift towards softer compounds for this season too: because most of the teams want them and are probably using the argument of “spicing up the show” as a means to get what they want.
9. 

   Jere (@jerejj)
   19th February 2018, 7:13

   Regarding the Crash.net-article: Although the tyres this year are going to be (or at least supposedly are) less durable than last year’s ones, I think they’ll be closer to the previous season degradation-wise than to 2011-2016.
10. 

    Schudha
    19th February 2018, 7:57

    Surely Mercedes are at a disadvantage with softer tyres? Year after year they’re able to put heat into the harder tyres and overheat the softer relative to Ferrari and red bull.
    I’m starting to think teams just go with the innate car behaviour with no real understanding of how to address tyre issues…
11. 

    Gary
    19th February 2018, 12:04

    DRS, drag reduction system, now to be supplemented by TDS, tyre degredation system.
    face palm…
    1. 

       DaveD (@daved)
       19th February 2018, 19:32

       No, it’s even worse…they’re going to SUPPLEMENT the fake passing of DRS with fake passing of TDS. We get the worst of both at the same time.
12. 

    Paul (@frankjaeger)
    19th February 2018, 22:18

    Here we go again…sigh

Comments are closed.