Ecclestone supports drivers’ call for “maximum-attack tyres”

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Bernie Ecclestone has endorsed F1 drivers’ call for tyres they can lean on more heavily during races, which could signal an imminent end for the ‘designed-to-degrade’ rubber used since 2011.

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The traditional first-visit-to-a-new-track-optimism is present and correct – but will it be justified?

Turns two through seven looks a bit dull with those 90-degree corners, but after that it looks like a fun track. Turn 16 all the way up too turn 1 looks like a guaranteed overtaking spot (that will sadly be butchered by DRS) and looks very exciting (especially 16-20).

Also, 12 through 15 looks like a cool part of the track especially with the track being narrow!

I genuinely hope this track will be as good as its layout suggests.
Gilles De Wilde (@gGdewilde)

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On this day in F1

Ferrari launched its 2011 F1 car five years ago today. The car which eventually came to be known as the Ferrari 150° Italia was originally launched as the Ferrari F150, but the team changed the naem after Ford raised objections due to its similarity to their F150 range of pick-up trucks.

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76 comments on “Ecclestone supports drivers’ call for “maximum-attack tyres””

  1. I’ve been following the redevelopment at Kyalami for a while and it does look stunning now the main track and runoffs are complete. The natural colours and the setting help, but the layout is good as well and in the era of Tilkedromes it’s just so…lovely to see a track built with love and investment in the right places rather than government petro-dollars, where every corner has a name rather than endless Turns One and Two, where you can actually tell where on the circuit a car is from the background.

    I know Porsche and the track management are playing down hopes of a F1 return – and that’d probably mean a Bernie-mandated Tilkising anyway! – but it’s a nice thought, and hopefully it can bring international racing to the south of the continent once more. I’ll be watching when it does. :)

    1. @joey-picus The designer clearly embraced the Tilke philosophy of widening the entry to slow corners to promote overtaking. Looks well done though. Presumably the new Afrix series will mean the track sees plenty of single-seater action too.

    2. I think it would be amazing to see WEC run on it. and an F1 return would be welcome, but unexpected.

    3. I, for one, am not fond of the new layout and I know I’m in the minority.

      Creating a hairpin out of Crowthorne and a 2nd or 3rd-gearer out of Barbeque, c’mon. The rest of the changes are adequate and I’m happy to see the most popular section of the post-1987 layout, the Mineshaft, retained.

      But overall, I think the huzzah is more down to decent promotion, e. g. bringing back ‘the’ corner names, this time around (and a sigh of relief that the track actually lived on and was not bought by someone intending to create a shopping mall of it). Rather than the actual layout. It’s still nowhere near as fun and as the original had been and just a bit more iconic than the previous version was (with corner names and a steep run down to T1 now restored at least).

  2. Pirelli have been designing and developing these tyres since before last season concluded, and we’re nearly in February now, so there’s not really any chance of having proper tyres for this year.

    Why can’t Ferrari’s livery just be what it has always been – red? I don’t understand why they keep splashing unattractive bits of white and black to it every year. My favourite Ferrari liveries were always the ones where they stuck to the core colour for the whole car.

    1. Unnamed sponsors money.

    2. Actually, I’m quite interested in a red and white Ferrari.

      The SF15T was b-eau-ti-ful. For me it was the most good-looking car on the grid for 2015. So I’m hoping that by the help of James Allison Ferrari has rediscovered how to make the car look amazing. Can’t wait to see their 2016 competitor.

      1. Did this a couple of weeks ago…

    3. Ferrari has not always been full red hence the retro theme being mentioned as a reference to the 70’s, never liked that livery much but as long as they put the Italian flag stripes on the white bit it maybe ok. 1993 was the worse as looked like a Dallara of the same year or a bit to close to Marlboro McLarens. Always liked the 90’s versions with black wings and gold wheels. Most important if they go retro is the blue FIAT badge will they recreate it but with F16T instead of Fiat?

    4. Marlboro need to recruit new smokers, so the subliminal colours need to change.

      1. I tried to incorporate the current Ferrari/Marlboro branding into the livery better than just a rectangle as they currently do…
        http://elliotthawkins.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/ferrari-f1-2016.html

        1. Very nicely done, Elliott. I think you hit all the right notes.

  3. No more excuses Pirelli.
    Bernie, drivers, teams, fans (and I guess FIA too but who cares) all want real tyres so we can see real racing again, the only detail left to sort out is testing but I’m sure the top teams will agree to do it. It only took 3 years for all of them to agree but better late than never I guess.

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      28th January 2016, 5:46

      No more excuses Pirelli

      Com’on you know better than that. @mantresx.
      Bernie says it himself in the article “I asked Pirelli to do was to produce a tyre that could probably do 50% of the race”.
      And when they produce a tyre with a ‘cliff’ everybody is upset because it ‘upsets’ races too suddenly (which nobody wanted) and was even seen as unsafe. And let’s be honest even that caused a lot of tyre management.
      And based on all the complaining they went for thermal degrading tyres, and obviously nobody is happy now.

      The only solution would be to create a ‘thermal appreciating’ tyre; the more you punish it, the longer it will last. I’ll mix up some compounds and have a go at it!

      1. Yeah it kind of seems like Pirelli can’t win no matter what they do, but I still get the impression that there’s room for improvement.
        Who knows, maybe it’s physically impossible to do a tyre that lasts only half a race and rewards more a driver pushing to gain time rather than going slow to make one less pitstop, but in other areas like safety Pirelli doesn’t have a perfect record in these past 5 years… trying a bit too hard to do the impossible?

        1. @mantresx @coldfly As long as F1 remains addicted to aero downforce which is the real cause for processions, not tires, and as long as Pirelli is the sole maker and therefore need to have their product talked about to achieve marketing impact, they will be making ‘gadgety’ tires designed to create the story in F1, rather than good dependable tires that the drivers can push.

          It is a bit interesting that now Pirelli is talking about less tread depth to create the need for 2 or 3 pits per race rather than heat related degradation, but that is still ‘manipulation-by-tire’ racing.

          Pirelli could start making the tires the drivers want tomorrow, but there will still be processions as long as cars’ performance remains so harmed by being so dependent on clean air that in dirty air the driver is handcuffed.

          F1 needs to get talking about reducing aero dependency or at a minimum, a ratio of aero to mechanical grip that favours more heavily the mechanical grip so cars can actually close up on each other. Then the drivers can create the show, not Pirelli.

          For me the two key things F1 should be doing to solve many problems is reduce, not gain, aero grip, and bring in a second tire maker so that competition between them results in great tires while still allowing both makers marketing impact as we discuss tires not because they provided drivers so much grief and manipulation of the race, but rather simply which driver/team currently leading the race or the WDC or having just made a pass or whatever, was on which tire. True racing that’s driver vs driver, not racing by gadget to try to mask aero failings of dirty air crippling the car behind.

          I think it’s great that the drivers and BE now are asking for better tires, but by no means do I take that to mean it will happen quite the way it could…not while the sole maker needs their tires to be a bigger factor than ones that can simply be pushed at the drivers’ whim, and not while no matter the tires the dirty air effect will kill the racing anyway. DRS kills the integrity of the sport and even it does not prevent processions, so bad is the real problem…aero dependence to too great a degree.

          1. @robbie @mantresx @coldfly All this talk about Pirelli now having no excuses is rubbish. We know the commercial contract is written by FOM and the requirement for the type of tyre laid out in writing – Pirelli said as much the other day.

            F1 will remain reliant on aerodynamics as long as BCE is ‘indebted’ to Red Bull to provide a chunk of the grid and a track. Whilst that is the case (and whilst the main team has their design department with Adrian Newey providing direction and a tap leading direct to Mateschitz’s money bin), they will continue to lobby for a formula that places the focus on aerodynamic-relevance.

            If Pirelli produced a tyre that provided good mechanical grip, coupled with a FIA-mandated reduction in downforce through simplified aero, then Red Bull would likely be right back on the lobby-bus. It’ll be mid-2013 all over again.

    2. Apex Assassin
      28th January 2016, 17:58

      Amen to that! I can’t agree more except to say that until F1 finds it’s way I’m not going to spend any money on their products and the related expenditures like airfare, hotels, team merch, and have even gone so far as to boycott sponsors that support regulations and players that disagree with my opinions.

      And before the haters jump in to say the lack of my thousands of annual spending won’t be noticed among the billions that F1 does make I’ll just say at least I’m doing something besides whinging from a keyboard.

  4. STOP THE PRESSES, Bernie said what?!? I must say, reading that article makes me feel very optimistic that the drivers will get what they asked for. While the exact effect of this potential change on the quality of racing, overtaking, etc can be debated ad nauseam, I personally think F1 would be well served to see the return of drivers pushing to the limit for as much of the race as possible.

    1. Bernie said what?!?- Yup, he worked out a way to disassociate himself from the tyre fiasco he (didn’t) initiated.

    1. Calling an inevitable doesn’t really count.

      ‘They will remove DRS’

      There, I called it.

      ‘Fully electric F1’

      Called it again. I winZ.

      1. No I called that they wouldn’t listen to my protest and would do the opposite, I clearly have magical power over the world of F1 in that they do the opposite of what I say I want so I’d be nice from now on.

  5. RaceProUK (@)
    28th January 2016, 1:35

    However, he defended F1’s supplier Pirelli and said the teams were making its life difficult by refusing to agree on an adequate testing programme to develop the tyres.

    This would be the testing the teams are prevented from doing by the regulations, yes?

    1. Or the testing MB got penalised for.

      1. No, it’s the testing they cannot afford because FOM withholds the revenue.

        1. RaceProUK (@)
          28th January 2016, 14:42

          That is true for the smaller teams, for sure.

      2. LOL What penalty? Exclusion from the Young Driver test? Oooooooh harsh!

    2. And in some cases, are prevented from doing by Pirelli itself!

      1. RaceProUK (@)
        28th January 2016, 14:41

        In the case of the wet-weather test, it does make a kind of sense to limit the number of cars running at a time. After all, using Paul Ricard for testing, they can control the wetness of the track pretty accurately; too many cars would make that difficult.

  6. And you actually believe Bernie? I think he is telling us one thing and telling Pirelli another. Or he is tired of covering for Pirelli and said what he always felt. Your choice.

    1. Bernie didn’t make the specs Pirelli are obliged to create. Given this, how does your comment have relevancy?

      1. Didn’t make em, but dit request them

      2. @Mr. X Jean Todt confirmed just yesterday I think that he had no control over the Tyre that Pirelli produced because it was a contract between Pirelli and FOM.

        FOM = Bernie

    2. petebaldwin (@)
      28th January 2016, 10:26

      You have to realise that Bernie works in a VERY predictable and simple way. It may look complicated and he may try to act clever on TV and appear evasive when questioned but it’s always so much more simple than it looks.

      Everything Bernie does is for one reason and that reason is to make him richer. He wouldn’t lie about wanting fit for purpose F1 tyres but tell Pirelli the opposite because doing so wouldn’t make him any money. He’ll publicly state that there may be no more Monza GP so that they pay him more money and he’ll try and implement Double Points at the final round so that Abu Dhabi pay him more money but when it’s “for the good of the sport”, “for ethical reasons” or “for the fans”, he’s not interested.

      It’s obviously reached a point now where some of the sponsors or desert/warzone track operators are unhappy with Pirelli’s Joketyres and suddenly Bernie agrees that Pirelli need to get their act together!

      1. How much money does he (Bernie) need?

        1. RaceProUK (@)
          28th January 2016, 14:38

          More than he already has?

        2. Wrong question, try “How much money does he want”? and then realise that it’s a game that Bernie plays to satisfy his ego.

  7. Sky Italia has the better share of the gp’s guess someone did a great job there, obviously it is the italian people that lose.

  8. No F1 Fanatic birthdays today

    Not completely true. ;-)

    1. @kingshark Fixed! Found the problem now. And happy birthday :-)

  9. What are you up to Bernie?

    1. Elliott Hawkins
      28th January 2016, 9:33

      I worked up a livery proposal last week…
      http://elliotthawkins.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/ferrari-f1-2016.html

    2. It certainly is not as dark as it used to be, but please compare apples to apples, not a dark overcast day and bright sunlight.

      http://b.f1-facts.com/ul/a/803

    3. One of the 1st things the new manager did last year when he started was to put more orange in the paint as a reference to the Schumacher era, I remember reading this. I think this was what he was on about when he was taking the plaudits for the improvement last year, more orange in the red makes the cars faster. Maybe McLaren will realise this was why they were so fast in the Marlboro era and put more orange or rocket red on their cars this year, got ti be worth a second a lap on paint alone.

      1. McLaren should go back to the old Bruce McLaren orange then, that could get them up to the back of Ferrari, without this 260 BHP they reportedly have found over the winter.

        1. They have not found 260bhp, like Ferrari it is clear most the winter has been focused on finding paint with more orange in it. McLaren workers had to work over christmas to find it, must have been a big treasure hunt round MTC. If they paint the whole car orange it will be McLaren domination next year.

  10. I’m getting tired of this Pirelli-bashing. They make the tyres they’re told to produce. The problem is, as Hemberry said, “those requirements need to align between drivers, teams and the promoter” – these people need to sort out what they want rather than use Pirelli as a whipping-boy. There’s only one thing I’d criticise Pirelli for: not getting a clearly-stated specification that they can hold up and make public. As it is now they’re getting jerked around by Bernie who refuses to take repsonsibility for the demands he placed on them, which is probably the price they pay for getting the ’17-’19 contract.

    No doubt the performance cliff of the 2017 tyres will have just as many people clutching their chests and frothing at the mouth.

    1. Why the F! does the promoter have a say in the tires used??? I 100% agree that Pirelli has taken a lot of bad mouthing without merit- but at some point common sense needs to stand up and rear its inconvenient head to show that the experiment of recreating Canada 2010 at every race is a failure.

      3 simple ways to make F1 more exciting: 1) cut aero grip: this slows cars in fast corners and improves safety. 2) increase tire durability: a driver should not hold back for fear of damaging tires- it should be the opposite: drive harder on tires to go faster. 3) increase horsepower significantly and ban any sort of driver aid/feedback/telemetry so the driver’s right foot and personal choice of diff settings is all that is in control of the rear torque.

      I’d also add safe concrete walls to those areas where drivers cut the course- but others may think that unsafe…

      1. @cartwheel, I generally agree except for the horsepower, these engines have enough power to destroy the tyres anywhere on the track but the drivers don’t use it for obvious reasons, better tyres would allow the drivers to use more off the power that they already have.

  11. Dear Bernie,

    While you are at that, can you PLEASE consider:

    1) Standardise all brake ducts so that teams cannot attempt to gain aero advantage by undersizing the duct, no more saving brakes
    2) Impose minimum fuel weight during the start of GP, no more fuel saving
    3) And oh please, no refuelling!!!
    4) Remove the need to use 2 tyre compounds, the teams may choose to complete the entire GP on one set

    All overtaking must be done on track!

    1. I would add: 5) put limit on downforce produced so that the aero difference becomes a drag issue which is not a major factor.
      6) add 400hp to the cars so they have a proper nutter power to weight ratio.

      F1 is too easy for the current crop of drivers.

      1. RaceProUK (@)
        28th January 2016, 21:07

        add 400hp to the cars

        They’re already peaking over 900bhp; how much more do people want?

        1. Well this guy wants exactly 400 more, how more specific do YOU want people to be :p

          1. No amount of extra horsepower will help if the tyres melt.

          2. RaceProUK (@)
            30th January 2016, 11:55

            There’s such a thing as too much power, y’know…

    2. add one more, tweak the regulations to have smaller front and rear wings. set a minimum rider height, allow underfloor tunnels to make up for the shortfall in downforce

      1. drag will immediately drop, cars go faster!

  12. I don’t really understand the logic behind the tyre proposals. If the objective is the improve ‘the show’ (i.e. create more exciting racing) then super-durable tyres are anathema to that.

    You’re looking at one of two things. Either a tyre which lasts about half the the race duration at full chat then suddenly falls off a cliff of performance, or a tyre which can last the entire race flat out.

    Let’s be clear, the first type of tyre doesn’t, hasn’t, and never will exist. Tyres will always suffer a dropoff in performance as the approach the end of their useful life; as the rubber gets thinner then the thermal characteristics of the tyre change and the performance is compromised. Even with a tyre which maintains good performance for most of its life will inevitably have a period of degradation. This degradation can always be slowed and delayed by driving less than flat out, giving an incentive to find the optimum performance window which balances laptime against tyre degradation. Which is exactly what we have at the moment. To be clear, a tyre designed to last anything less than the majority of the race duration at full speed will inevitably lead to tyre management rather than flat-out driving.

    The second type of tyre – one that could be thrashed to the limit for the whole race – causes other issues. Again, remembering that the objective is to improve the racing, this is going to have the opposite effect. If I’m sat on the grid in a racing car, and the car in front is slightly faster, and the car behind slightly slower, and we can all drive at the full potential of the car, what exactly is going to prevent us from finishing the race in exactly the same order we started? Either driver error or mechanical fault. Neither of which seem to occur in modern F1 with anything like the frequency they used to. If you need any proof, just look at the last couple of years running Bridgestones as the sole supplier – a tyre whcih could be pushed hard all race long. Drivers simply judged their pitstops by where they would come out in the pack. Races were processional.

    I can’t get my head around it at all. The high-deg rubber Pirrelli were asked to provide was a response to this exact situation. Is everyone in F1 really so short sighted that they can’t see how utterly illogical it is to go back to the same setup again? I love seeing F1 cars at full chat as much as anyone else – it’s one of the reasons why Monaco is one of my favourite races, despite the lack of action. But if every race is going to be a long train of cars following each other home, people will soon get very very bored of it. Again.

    1. Matthew Coyne
      28th January 2016, 12:51

      Agree with you to a point however I would argue that one of the reasons that we don’t see many driver errors these days is they are only driving at 80% of their potential. If they are pushing flat out 100% all the time then they are far more likely to go over that limit than pottering around like they do today.

    2. Roger-P-Ayles
      28th January 2016, 13:14

      If you need any proof, just look at the last couple of years running Bridgestones as the sole supplier – a tyre whcih could be pushed hard all race long. Drivers simply judged their pitstops by where they would come out in the pack. Races were processional.

      @mazdachris the only thing wrong with the final year of Bridgestone (2010) was the stupid rule forcing them to run both compounds.

      The ban on refueling in 2010 had already helped create a significant increase in overtaking on practically every circuit & had there been no mandatory pit stops at all we likely would have seen even more as it woudl have removed the incentive to try the undercut & put all the incentive on trying to overtake on the track.

      With regards to Pirelli, The problem isn’t that the tyres degrade its the way they are designed to degrade. Its the ridiculous thermal degredation concept that is forcing drivers to never push anywhere close to the limit because as the BBC article points out if a driver pushed hard for 1 lap the tyres go over the temperature threshold & performance never comes back.
      With compound degredation (As we had in F1 in the past & still have in every other racing category) you can push flat out & while the tyre still wears it wears in a predictable way & if you push too hard & overheat the tyre you can back off for a lap or 2 & get the performance back without hitting the cliff.

      I’ve been a long time F1 fan & at no point in F1’s history have I ever seen tyres as fragile as what we have had recently, At no point have I ever seen drivers been forced to drive as far off the limit as they have & i’ve never seen tyres talked about & criticized as much as they have been. I’d go as far as to say its been one of the worst, more dull era’s in F1’s history because watching drivers cruising around is dull as dishwater & the whole cliff concept is the most absurd thing i have ever seen.

      Some of the ‘action’ these tyres have created is so uncompetitive that you may as well have some cars on slicks & others on wets because the ‘overtaking’ they are generating certainly isn’t the sort of hard fought, competitive or exciting overtaking that many want to see.

      I’m all for more durable tyres which allow drivers to push flat out over the life of the tyre. Its about time this ridiculous artificial era of F1 finally ended, Hopefully DRS will be the next monstrosity to go!

    3. The difference is one is wear related and the other is thermal related. Agreed that it is not possible to have tires that don’t drop off and this is bad for racing. What needs to be stricken is the artificial thermal deg built into the tires. Having a tire slow as it wears is good for the show- and if you can wear the tire slower than your competitors it is an advantage. Make this slowing only caused by wear- once the tires wear they cannot maintain the same temperature and they start to slow down. Make the wear level such that there will be tires that could go a full race distance but this would be slower than pit-stops and softer tires.

      The issue now is if the drivers drive too hard they get a double whammy of mechanical wear and artificial thermal degradation, so there is a huge penalty for actually racing vs driving around at a set optimal pace. The tires need to be such that a driver can attack without a major penalty to tire life- in fact make it such that the driver needs to attack to maintain tire temps so a following driver actually gets an advantage because they can get their tires a bit hotter.

    4. You’re looking at one of two things. Either a tyre which lasts about half the the race duration at full chat then suddenly falls off a cliff of performance, or a tyre which can last the entire race flat out.

      What we have with the current Pirelli’s is neither of those things.

      Tyres will always suffer a dropoff in performance as the approach the end of their useful life; as the rubber gets thinner then the thermal characteristics of the tyre change and the performance is compromised.

      That is NOT what we are seeing with the current Pirelli’s, which are designed to go bad and give permanently reduced performance if a driver overheats them by attempting to drive quickly – REGARDLESS of how much thread remains.

      Mark Hughes covers all of this in more detail than I can in a comment, so I’ll just link to him. Read especially the part starting at “It’s necessary to properly understand the distinction between deliberately engineered heat degrading tyres and a normal racing tyre”.

      http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/f1/drivers-demanding-a-return-to-flat-out-f1/

      1. That link is really worth a read, was going to post it up but you beat me to it. Would advise anyone thinking of commenting about this to read the article in full 1st.

      2. No, I know it’s not precisely what is happening with the Pirrellis, but I’m saying that thermal degradation is a factor in a racing tyre when pushed past its limit, and that’s a natural characteristic. This is why, even in the days of the tyre wars, you’d see tyres which would stop giving the absolute best grip before the end of a single qualifying lap. It’s not because the tyre has run out of tread, it’s because the tyre has started to overheat and the compound isn’t working as effectively as it should do. This can lead to tyre graining in the more extreme examples. The critical difference of course is that once they overheat a Pirelli tyre, that’s it. It’s fit for the bin. But a normal racing tyre can be cooled down by a couple of more steady laps. This kind of tyre management has always been a part of motorsport, and will be as long as tyres have a finite operating window. Again, this isn’t an artificial thing, just a natural characteristic of a racing tyre. There simply isn’t such a thing as a tyre which will just give more and more grip the harder it is pushed and the hotter it gets.

        My point really is that there is a massive difference between a tyre which isn’t destroyed the moment it gets too hot, and a tyre which is designed for absolute flat out racing lap after lap. The issue with the Pirellis isn’t specifically that they suffer thermal deg – this is normal and will happen in any case – it’s the problem that they are destroyed the moment they overheat. The answer surely is just a normal racing tyre, not this extreme idea of absolute flat out racing for the whole race. That hasn’t ever really happened, and as I point out, the times we got closest to having this were the times when we saw the dullest races.

    5. @mazdachris, Your hypothesis assumes that drivers are all capable of driving 60 error free laps at qualifying speeds and their cars performance will remain constant throughout those 60 laps, the former is rare and the latter impossible as you yourself state.

      1. @mazdachris I hear you about the tire dilemma but more and more I am seeing this as an aero issue as being a far bigger problem. Processions have existed before on far better tires, and they exist still up until the very last F1 race we saw a handful of months ago, in spite of the tires and DRS. They need to get off the aero addiction and stop trying to figure out some magical tire formula for degradation that fits their manipulation of the racing, a manipulation they can’t seem to agree on or get right anyway.

        Get back to basics of driver vs driver racing by reducing the dirty air effect, and stop trying to make everything about tires, because we have seen over the last two decades or more that aero is the real enemy to close racing, no matter the tires.

  13. Mercedes has well over 900bhp overall (ERS included) and no mistake – they made it in 2005 and this is the second time they claim this is the most powerful PU they’ve created.

    1. 900hp? Yup……sometimes. Only when all the gizmos are running for a qualifying lap or race critical overtake though, oh yeah and they still sound like a pregnant cat giving birth. Strat mode 6 lewis etc…garbage, give the drivers enough fuel to finish the race and let them manage it, sick of the spoon feeding from the pit wall these days too.

    2. Yes, in fact all the engines make more power than the tyres can take, it’s the tyres that are slowing down the race not the PUs.

  14. I am going to stick that motorsport article in my favourites and use it as a reply to anyone who asks for old engines back. It is so refreshing to hear someone defending them for a change, they are amazing bits of kit and should be praised at every possible opportunity.

  15. I’m curious as to why they don’t reconsider ground effect in F1. They could get rid of the wings altogether and still have the grip. I think that would allow the cars to follow much closer. Maybe it would actually give more grip because of the compressed air coming out from underneath the car ahead? I’m not sure though. Perhaps there are some people here that could elaborate on this? Or at least drastically reduce wing heights, and add a moderate amount of ground effect. Even standardise the floors maybe?

  16. Ladies and Gentelmen!

    We’ve got them.

    “In the round-up: Bernie Ecclestone has endorsed F1 drivers’ call for tyres they can lean on more heavily during races, which could signal an imminent end for the ‘designed-to-degrade’ rubber used since 2011.”

    Now Pirelli was awesome to me in 2011. In 2012 it got old… on 2013 offensive. And in 2014 totally unnecessarily. And in 2015… geez robed us of good show. Audience is against it, drivers are against it, I imagine sponsors would want to sponsor faster cars that promote driving cars hard on the limit… not easy going protecting the tires parody.

    So good :D

    Feels like a victory! Can we have that in 2016 already?

    1. Talk is cheap. Let’s see them act. I’ll not hold my breath.

Comments are closed.