Daniel Ricciardo thinks Pirelli should bring its new hyper-soft tyres to every round of the championship to make races more exciting.
Several drivers voiced their unhappiness with the tyres Pirelli provided for last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix. The softest tyre available, the super-soft compound, was a focus of criticism as it performed poorly and was only used by two drivers in the race.
Ricciardo was one of several drivers who urged Pirelli to create a larger performance gap between the nominated tyres.“I did my quickest lap [in qualifying] with a soft. I think a lot of the time this year the tyres haven’t really had a big enough difference.”
Only one of the drivers who reached the top 10 in qualifying last weekend did so using the super-soft. Ricciardo pointed out that meant teams at the tail end of the top 10 were at a disadvantage.
“For us quicker cars it makes it a bit easier but if you’re sitting in eighth place they’re likely starting on the worst tyre and they’re already starting at a disadvantage. So that’s what a lot of the midfield teams were complaining about, which makes sense.”
The hyper-soft tyre, which is new for the 2018 F1 season, won immediate praise from drivers when it was used for the first time in testing. It has been nominated by Pirelli for two of the first 10 races.
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But Ricciardo, who has chosen the maximum allowance of hyper-softs for next week’s Monaco Grand Prix, wants it to appear more often to create more opportunities for teams to be creative with their race strategies.
Ricciardo said his first impressions of the hyper-soft tyre was positive. “We ran it in Abu Dhabi, it seemed to be a good step up on grip, seemed to hold on.
“And then in winter testing it was the same. So far it seems OK. I don’t know how long it would last on some circuits. But at the moment, whether it’s the construction or whatever, it seems like it’s a decent tyre. We’ll see, we’re using it next week.”
However Pirelli’s sporting director Mario Isola says this week’s test at the Circuit de Catalunya shows the hyper-soft is too soft for that track.
“Clearly on this circuit the hyper-soft is too soft,” he said. “The performance is there for one lap or less than one lap, but [that] is a normal situation for a hyper-soft in Barcelona.
“The level of grip in the hyper-soft is high, it is a step compared to the ultra-soft. Now we are very interested to see what is the result in Monaco because obviously it’s a different circuit, a street circuit with lower severity. The hyper-soft is designed for this kind of track, not Barcelona.”
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vjanik (@vjanik)
17th May 2018, 13:19
“Clearly on this circuit the hyper-soft is too soft,” he said.
Hmm. Maybe let the teams make that decision?
I think even with the hypersoft, we would have had most people do a one stop strategy last week.
gus maia
17th May 2018, 13:24
given enough time to attend logistical complications, teams should be allowed to choose any range/distribution of sets – and be responsible for that if they were to bold.
gus maia
17th May 2018, 13:25
*too bold
Tristan (@skipgamer)
17th May 2018, 16:32
But that’s like teams being able to setup the tyres however they like which led to tyres exploding when they ran them with stupid levels of camber and pressure.
Who did the drivers blame when that happened? Not their teams of course, but Pirelli. They will run whatever is theoretically quickest regardless of the safety implications. And that is why compounds need to be limited.
SM
17th May 2018, 17:17
And that is why Pirelli need to step up their work in construction etc. So that teams can run these tyres how they want without risk of failure. Michelin and Bridgestone tyres were bullet proof in this regard
Martin
17th May 2018, 19:14
Sure…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_United_States_Grand_Prix
David Not Coulthard (@davidnotcoulthard)
18th May 2018, 10:29
That does leave Bridgestone…though someone said somewhere (i.e. take it with a grain of salt) their “surviving” the incident had to do with something Firestone experienced there.
Philip (@philipgb)
17th May 2018, 13:32
The problem with the tyre allocations is often teams don’t have enough brand new sets of the softest tyres at their disposal. I think a tyre credit system rather than absolute number of sets might make things more interesting.
If a team could get say 3 sets of ultra or hyper soft tyres with the same credits as 2 sets of soft or medium, they’d have more strategic options open to them.
Pirelli calculate their expected tyre life of each tyre, just tell teams they can have tyres that will cover X number of laps, and let them decide if they want fewer harder or more softer to make up that balance.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
17th May 2018, 13:32
I’d quite like them to stop using tyres as an artificial means of ‘spicing up the show’ & just let teams pick whatever supplier, Whatever compounds & whatever strategies they feel is best for there package.
FlatSix (@)
17th May 2018, 13:44
@stefmeister I’m all up for letting the teams choose the tyres for a weekend, but having different suppliers is going to kill this sport. I don’t get how that idea continues to keep breathing.
Having more than one supplier will create a fight for the best tyre, it will dictate all outcomes and it’ll benefit only one guy, and that’s the one with the biggest wallet.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
17th May 2018, 14:50
@flatsix
Isn’t that supposed to be the purpose of the sport?
F1 is supposed to be the pinnacle of the sport, It’s supposed to be about developing the best product possible be it tyres, engine, chassis, brakes, suspension etc…. F1 is also supposed to be about competition, Competition which helps drive development & performance forward to result in the best product’s possible.
This to me is what puts F1 above everything else & it’s why I love F1 more than I do something like the modern Indycar.
The tyre war IMO was fantastic, The various suppliers of the time pushing one another forward, Constantly developing better tyres that provided better performance…. That was so much better than what we have now where the tyres are not the best they could be, Do not offer the best performance they could do & are to be honest sub-par at best.
anon
17th May 2018, 18:44
@stefmeister, if you were a front running team that had the full backing of a particular tyre manufacturer, you would probably be quite happy given that you would be getting all of the advantages and benefits of that competition.
However, if you were, say, a midfield team that was having to partially subsidise the larger teams through your fees and effectively being ignored by the tyre manufacturer, who chose to build their tyres around their nominated team, you might be rather less keen on a measure that helped entrench the power of the big teams at the expense of the rest of the field.
I recall that one of the former senior mechanics at Tyrrell mentioned how, in some cases, the tyre manufacturers were even actively hindering smaller teams by refusing to give them information (claiming that Goodyear refused to give Tyrrell information on the construction of the tyre because “they weren’t important enough to Goodyear” – even though Tyrrell paid the same fees as everybody else, only the top four teams were given full access to Goodyear’s test data).
@HoHum (@hohum)
18th May 2018, 0:35
@stefmeister, @flatsix and ANON Since “Formula One” has become “Formula Tyre” I’m with the Stef, and the solution to the chorus of disapproval as detailed by ANON is for the FIA to mandate a maximum price per tyre and insist that all F1 tyres, together with all the data from both testing and racing, be available to all teams that want them. If every team wants brand X tyres, brand X has major bragging rights, and brands U,V,W,Y and Z, have an incentive to try harder.
RL
17th May 2018, 14:08
Here we go again.
Have a read at this, Alan Henry quickly guides us through different eras of various tire manufacturers.
https://www.mclaren.com/formula1/blog/alan-henry/formula-1-tyre-wars/
Tires as an ‘unnatural’ (i.e. artificial) part of F1 is like saying aerodynamics is unnatural to a vehicle, unless you’re a pre-1968 F1 traditionalist who thinks the sport hasn’t been the same since Sir Colin stuck on a few pieces of metal on Hill’s car at Monaco.
If it’s part of the F1 car, engineers have forever been trying to find advantages to it. Parts of F1 cars have either been homogenised or neutered to prevent any team taking advantage (halo, engine oil, launch control systems) , or has been a never-ending source of tinkering for engineers (front and rear wings, fuel, exhausts)
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
17th May 2018, 13:53
Don’t all those in Q3 get given an extra set of the softest available compound to use in Q3 only, then give back?
If this is the case, then these extra tyres should always be hyper-soft. No sets to practice with just, bang all out for a mega Quali lap. One hit for all 10. That would be exciting.
FlatSix (@)
17th May 2018, 14:11
@eurobrun Exactly. I’ve mentioned that before. Maybe it should even be a special Q tyre which they only get in Q3, easy to get into the window, super performance, two sets for two laps.
ram (@)
17th May 2018, 17:53
I think you are on to something here.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
17th May 2018, 14:54
@flatsix
Totally agree.
It reminds of playing the old Geoff Crammond Grand Prix game on my Amiga.
Tyres compounds were A, B, C, D, Q and W. Q only allowed during qualifying.
SM
17th May 2018, 17:24
I agree! I still play Geoff Crammond’s games these days! Grand prix 3 and 4 also had inters, soft wets, hard wets and monsoon tyres as per the rules. A single hard and soft compound for dry tyres and special qualifying tyres. I like this tyre compound structure.
Instead of having 7(?) dry compounds that are so close in performance that they have to skip a few in between to create a meaningful pace difference. I mean, why not just stick to 3 widely spaced compounds and bring them to every race?
Driomed
17th May 2018, 18:40
Because if one of the three turned out to be this years super soft, then you’re stuffed. The way they have it, super soft can be binned or used at a track where it works better.
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
17th May 2018, 19:19
Er…that’s not too bright of Daniel, is it? I would like to see him do a stint on hypersofts at Spa or Suzuka. We’re lucky we don’t have Sepang on the calendar anymore.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
18th May 2018, 11:46
I miss Sepang though. I’d rather have it than Sotchi for example.
johntodiffer
19th May 2018, 2:00
The prospect of having to do just that would be forced on the top teams by the low midfielders using them in Q2. Good recipe for a boring race when the top 6 can choose any tyre they want to start on.
SuperSenna
18th May 2018, 20:35
Ban the tyre rules for the race – only keeping the one that says that must begin the race with the qualifying tyres -, set the same colour for every type of tyre, introducing more unpredictable stints.
That will improve the possibility of a midfield teams good result and add to the show.