Hamilton: Pirelli should’ve brought thinner tyres to Austria

2018 Austrian Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton says Pirelli should have brought its thinner-tread tyres for the Austrian Grand Prix after he and other drivers suffered blistering in the race.

Pirelli produced a special batch of tyres which are 0.4mm thinner than usual for the previous race at Paul Ricard, as well as at the Circuit de Catalunya earlier this year. The thinner tyres were created after some drivers experienced blistering in testing.

Hamilton was one of several drivers whose tyres blistered during yesterday’s race. The team only planned to pit once but Hamilton was forced to stop again for a third set of tyres.

“They should’ve brought the other tyre here, the same tyres we had in the last race,” said Hamilton after the race.

Asked if it was unusual to see tyres blistering, Hamilton said “it’s not unusual. When you make the wrong call, that’s what happens. They were supposed to bring the other tyre this weekend.”

“It doesn’t really make a difference to my weekend anyway” added Hamilton, who retired with a loss of fuel pressure following his second pit stop.

Sebastian Vettel previously claimed Pirelli introduced the thinner tyre due to pressure from Mercedes. The thinner tyres will be used again at this weekend’s British Grand Prix.

Hamilton said the fragility of the tyres prevented him from being able to attack the cars in front of him when he fell to fourth place following his mis-timed pit stop.

“I was trying to overtake,” he said. “And that’s probably the problem with these tyres is you can’t stay in a race.

“I had the pace to put on a race and stay with them and be in the fight for the rest of the race and then the tyres don’t make it. In that circumstance, that’s robbed the fans of seeing more racing. But that is just the way it is.”

“These tyres aren’t good enough for us to be able to really race,” he added. “It’s a shame these tyres aren’t good enough that you can stay in the battle, you have blistering.”

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90 comments on “Hamilton: Pirelli should’ve brought thinner tyres to Austria”

  1. Seems Vettel was perfectly able to fight Hamilton, so I would say it’s mainly a Mercedes problem. A Mercedes problem that is solved by Pirelli on a few grand-prix.

    1. It wasnt only a mercedes problem. listen to riccardo post race interview

      1. That’s the difference between mainly and only :)

        1. haas, renault and force india also complained about the tyres so how is it mainly a mercedes problem.

          1. This issue is identical to the troubles in 2013
            https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/22543884
            Then Lotus and Ferrari excelled at using the tires optimally, until the tires were modified, giving tbe Bulls and Stars the solution to their problem. That solution robbed Lotus and Ferrari the chance to become WC-contenders and Mainly Redbull and Mercedes profited most from the changed tires.
            Seems like the same teams haven’t learned their lesson, so my question is: who will gain most if they change the game mid-season again?
            Haas, Renault, FI and to a lesser degree Redbull knew the risk, and can adapt their car / driving behavior to minimalise the effect, while Mercedes have a bit more work on their hands.
            The solution is simple: don’t overheat the tires (at least not untill they’re worn to 70%)
            Changing the tires to suit a few teams will get a close fight over faster than a blink of an eye: Watch the trend from 2013: Close fight until after Spain between RB, Fer, Lot and Merc. And remember what happened later in the season.

    2. @George Spot on, LOL.

    3. Hamilton’s poor racecraft is also to blame for his tyres going off. After Lewis pitted for new softs, he attacked Raikkonen right away instead of biding his time. Kimi had DRS from Dan in front, so it would have been much smarter for Lewis to save his tyres and attack later on in the race.

      Blaming Pirelli is such a pathetic thing to do.

      1. @kingshark, it should be noted that Pirelli themselves have said that, whilst there was the risk of blistering, they have accepted that the severity of the blistering that multiple teams experienced was more than they had expected and did have an adverse impact on the race. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/pirelli-surprised-by-tyre-blistering-in-austria-1054753/?s=1

        Equally, isn’t it rather hypocritical of you to say that it is pathetic for Hamilton to criticise Pirelli, but when Vettel is the one who was complaining about the tyres, it is not Vettel’s “poor racecraft to blame for his tyres going off”, but all the fault of Pirelli? It does come across as one rule for your favourite driver and another for everybody else when you do that.

        1. and did have an adverse impact on the race.

          Of course tyre wear had an adverse impact on the race. The question is whether or not the tyres did not allow for racing like Lewis claims.

          The fact that Vettel overtook Hamilton on 11 lap older tyres makes Hamilton’s complaints look like salty tears rather than anything legitimate.

    4. Speaking of Pirelli I have to say, a comprehensive website of a conspiracy theory detailing how the French, but Todt-headed FIA ‘is Ferrari International Assistance’ while Italian tyre manufacturer Pirelli for some reason ‘keeps assisting Mercedes’ would be very entertaining.

      And even broken clocks are occasionally correct so there’s a tiny chance such a theory might manage to contain an ounce of truth

      1. Pirelli ownership is Chinese, btw.

        1. Biggest Daimler shareholder is also Chinese.

        2. @telegrafista @ruliemaulana Oo that would be interesting. Maybe no wonder they haven’t bothered with a Chinese F1 team?

          On another note a world with both “Chinachem” and “ChemChina” being 2 completely different companies must be pretty frustrating.

      2. @davidnotcoulthard
        Jean Todt was fired from his role as a CEO of Ferrari , and not just the team principle role as many people might think, by then Vice-President of Fiat Group Sergio Marchionne who is the current Ferrari President despite winning both WDC and WCC back in 2007.
        I don’t know how Todt would have so much compassion to his former employer.

        1. Any links to that? All I’ve found is this which would harm the theory so we all should shut up about it. :p

          1. @davidnotcoulthard
            Since Marchionne was appointed as senior Vice-President of the Fiat group in 2004 Ferrari were subject to budgetary control like all the rest of the group units. Before that, Jean Todt was enjoying an unlimited budget to the point that he have many times overrun it and his requests were never refused since Di Montezemolo was Fiat president. Marchionne’s position got stronger inside the group and Jean Todt got squeezed.
            As for the links, I don’t know if you’re referring on Jean Todt squezing Ferrari or the Marchionne story. If it is the first suggestion then there are many links that I can attach if it is the second then I have to dig deep in the old Italian journals articles which is laborious btw.

      3. A broken clock is always right two times a day.
        But the overdriving of the tires by Ham and Ric are a driver problem.

        1. Yea..yea…What are they using those tires for? Traction? They need to stop that right now!

    5. Exactly…and that’s the problem with those thinner thread tyres: they clearly benefit Mercedes and prevent fans from a great race like we saw in Austria. When these new spec tyres were used – Barcelona, Paul Ricard – Mercedes dominated. Now inSilverstone we will be able to confirm it. Although I understand that other teams had a role in getting Pirelli to develop the thinner tyres, this should have never had happened. It’s more and less proved that the spec used in Austria is not a security risk. They were introduced to benefit teams with problems in tyre degradation. F1 should learn with itand prevent in the future any influence of teams in tyre development. Otherwise as a fan I would like to have a Bridgestone/Michellin fight back.

      1. “they clearly benefit Mercedes and prevent fans from a great race like we saw in Austria.”

        You did notice Hamilton cruising out front until right?

        His tyres only blistered because he was pitted into traffic and was pushing for many laps trying to regain positions

    6. Was he? The only time I saw him attack Hamilton was when Hamiltons tyres were gone and he was complaining about loss of power…

      The rest of the race Vettel was firmly behind Kimi.

  2. So apparently Isola was saying that theyre considering to bring the new tyres (spain/france/silverstone-tyres) to more circuits because 6 teams struggled with blistering today. Sky italia presenter got very angry and asked Isola why they would punish the 4 teams with no tyre-issues. The teams with the issues should adapt their setup or change their car. Isola didnt respond and just walked away.

    It is ashamed of how much this hybrid decade goes to Mercedes and Hamilton on hand. As far as I remember Hamilton was for the same mistake that Seb was punished during the qualification, it was spared with the explanation “we did not want to affect the outcome of the championship” and Ham go without punishment.

    If Seb wins this most interesting season in the hybrid era, it will be the most valuable achievement over the last 20 years, otherwise it will celebrate the British establishment that is interwoven into all aspects of F1.

    1. Isola has denied saying this:

      I never said that. Tyres with reduced tread thickness are for the 3 races already announced and because of the characteristics of the new asphalt.

      https://twitter.com/mario_isola/status/1013698042355216384

  3. Once again you lack of info has prevented you from posting the correct response. The reason why Lewis was overtaken was because he attacked immediately after his pitstop which caused overheating and thus he took too much out of his tires. Seb on the other hand was protecting his tires and not pushing. So when he saw Lewis took all the life out of his tires he attacked and Lewis had nothing to respond with. If you like to watch follow my leader then I suggest you another sport but I as a F1 fan what racing and Lewis is right we need rules that promote racing not an economy run. I am sure had the tires held up Lewis would have given the fans a race.

    1. I know fans of Ferrari and Vettel will say so what, but the tyre wear has been ruining races this year. Monaco was a disaster. And there’s just something dismal about the difference between racing out front and the same car and driver getting massive amounts of wear and blistering when they drop behind after a pit stop. It isn’t how it should be.

      1. At any race there are three compounds available. The problem isn’t the tires, but the inability to get close enough to gain on track positions while racing: This makes track position more important than laptimes, so we see a lot of “follow the leader, as slowly as possible” to survive a one-stop at any cost.
        The teams could’ve chosen to get an US-SS-SS strategy, but being unable to pass even a much slower car on concrete tires means they will not.

    2. After lost the position to Vettel, Lewis was actually faster and follow Seb within DRS range for many laps. It’s only after that phase we could see Lewis’s tyre situation worsened and started dropping in pace. It’s a myth to me how he managed to lose that position to begin with.

  4. They were supposed to bring the other tyre this weekend.”

    I’d ask Hamilton for a citation for this, because from the outset it was only meant for three tracks, and the Red Bull Ring wasn’t in that list of three.

    1. @phylyp Indeed.

      After Silverstone they’re not slated to return, but it’s a safe bet Hamilton would like them to appear again.

      1. Some teams seem to make them work, Ferrari for instance seemed to be fine and Vettel had to push and pass Hamilton on the track. Not really sure if bringing them in races other than Silverstone is the “fair” thing to do. I remember when Ferrari had tyre issues (in Spa and Austria), Pirelli didn’t alter the tyre for all teams.

        After all if you can’t make them work switch to a two stops or maybe try slightly used tyres?

        1. @afonic How did Vettel push? Hamilton pushed and his tires were shot within a lap or two. Same with Ricciardo. The only way to use those tyres is to nurse them the whole race. Which Hamilton would have don just fine if they had pitted him on time, but still.

          1. @patrickl

            Vettel pushed, closed the gap and passed Hamilton, putting two wheels on the grass at the process. Now, if you’re arguing that Hamilton’s tires had already starting to go at the time, I agree with you, but don’t say the other’s weren’t pushing. And if Hamilton was pushing at the start of the stint, he still couldn’t get close enough to Raikonnen to try a move.

            Kimi was constantly putting on fastest laps trying to close Verstappen down. I think the extreme blistering in Hamilton and Ricciardo could be that they tried to push right away, instead of warming up the tires, but in any case there was not an extreme difference in pace to suggest that the tires that lasted the distance were on cars that didn’t push.

          2. @afonic No he didn’t. Hamilton came out just in front of Vettel. The only reason Vettel came even closer was because Hamilton dropped back after his tyres gave up.

            Raikkonen was setting fastest lap times because his weight was down.

  5. The thinner tyres shouldn’t even exist

    1. This.

      1. They will be back if Merc are behind after Silverstone.

    2. Yeah, because what we all want to watch is a tire management championship.

    3. Agreed. They were the tyres from the start of the season. Teams should build the cars to work with the tyres that are provided for them. If Mercedes can’t do it properly, that’s their problem, pirelli shouldn’t have to create new tyres to keep them happy.

      1. @hugh11, except, back in Barcelona, it was Ferrari that had bigger problems with tyre blistering, not Mercedes – remember Vettel conceding after the race that Ferrari would have been in even bigger trouble during that race if they’d used the regular tyres instead of the thinner gauge tyres? Furthermore, there were quite a few publications with photos showing how blistered Ferrari’s tyres were, both during the race weekend and during the post race tests, particularly when they tried using the regular tyres (though even the thinner gauge ones were showing signs of blistering).

        Bringing the thinner gauge tyres therefore helped Ferrari out by reducing their problems with blistering in Barcelona – so shouldn’t you be complaining that Pirelli shouldn’t have to create new tyres that were of benefit to Ferrari?

        1. The blistering in Barcelona was because Ferrari trying to adapt better to the thinner tire introduced new parts for the rear and put too much load on the tires.. they removed that and they did well in France..so like Ferrari found the problem and fixed for the special races, Mercedes should do the same for the other races with regular tires instead of asking for more special things

        2. that is besides the point, doesn’t matter who has the biggest problems with blisters.
          What it does matter is that tyres were changed mid-season.

          Have teams have problems with making them last while on a one stop strategy there is a easy solution, pit two times

          1. @johnmilk The teams already tested shaved tyres during the tyre tests.

            The teams can do perfectly fine with these tyres if thje drivers just nurse them from start to finish. How on earth is that something you would like to see?

            It’s nonsense that Ferrari is disadvantaged by the shaved tyres. They themselves confirmed this. All teams suffer from this and the viewers even more. There is no attacking on these tyres. Only nursing.

          2. @patrickl how on earth have you come to the conclusion that’s what I want to see?

            I don’t care about Ferrari, Merc, RBR or any other team.

            The only thing that I think shouldn’t be done is to change specifications mid-season, teams should work with what they are given at the start.

            Same goes for any other change. We don’t see for example the new front wings to be rushed in mid season.

            It is an entirely different subject what sort of race and tyres I wish for F1, as I said below.

          3. @johnmilk Indeed I don’t give a hoto about what you would like to see. It only matters that there was a perfectly fine reason why the teams agreed to have these shaved tyres.

            There was no mid season change. They tested shaved tyres well before the season started.

    4. The tyres used in Austria shouldn’t exist unless your favourite part of F1 is tyre management.

      1. @todfod when was the last time in the Pirelli era that tyre management wasn’t a big part of the racing?

        That’s another issue and besides the point. What I like and wish for Formula 1 isn’t this, but that’s what we got from Pirelli, it should at least be done right.

        1. @johnmilk

          Agree.. But wasn’t the whole point of the 2017 onwards regulations aimed at faster cars and more flat out racing? Wasn’t that Pirellis recent agenda?

          If it needs to be done right the narrower tread tyres should be used in all the races, not the other way around.

          1. Pirelli are asked by FIA to bring tires that would allow at least two stops, so that’s their agenda. Since most teams stopped only once at Austria, they tyre wasn’t too fragile. Mercedes and Red Bull would have had no issue if they had simply accepted to stop twice from early on.

          2. @todfod that was the FIA agenda but didn’t reach to the tyres. Pirelli said at the start of the season that the goal was to have two stops per race with tyres designed to degrade, albeit less temperature sensitive. Something that it appears they have failed to achieve ( well one might argue that they did do that with tyres that create blisters)

            I don’t think we have flat out racing with the thinner tyres either. I never been a fan of the F1 tyres, and don’t really understand why we can’t have tyres that give maximum performance, and why we have so many rules on how teams might use them. It takes away tactical differences and hinder performance.

  6. More Mercedes bias, no thanks.

    The 2 Ferraris had barely any blistering, and managing your tyres properly is part of the sport. And no, I don’t mean lifting and coasting, but setup adaptations.

  7. It seams it will be a tyre management year. They predominantly run on single stop strategy and however manages better his tyres throughout the race emerges as race winner. It seams Ferrari solved tyre degradation issue and it is the case why they are opting form more aggressive tyre strategy (starting on US) both France and Austria. Unfortunately both in Austria and France their race was compromised by corner one collision (France) and grid penalty (Austria) so true pace could not be revealed and harvested. It will be interesting year to watch.. :)

  8. Mercedes are very good at manipulating the media and crying to get what they want. After falsely accusing Ferrari of cheating with their battery, they now want their special tyres on more circuits.

    1. @kingshark
      I think that whole Battery thing was just a masquerade in order to know how the Ferrari ERS unit works. Mercedes knows actually a big part of how the Ferrari system works since Lorenzo Sassi is now working with them. The Ferrari system was designed with 2 batteries since 2014. What Mercedes (Sassi) didn’t understand is how Ferrari got it to work so efficiently after he left the team. So they went to the FIA lobbying. What I still don’t know is whether the FIA would have just replied to Mercedes by “OK, it’s legal” or they would have gave them some indications on how it works ?

  9. Alternative view: bringing this tyre rewarded both drivers and cars that are good with their tyres?

    1. Wasn’t tyre management one thing we were hoping to see less of, and instead, have drivers pushing flat out?

      1. Umm I wonder if you were saying the same for Ferrari last year that didn’t work well with harder tires, longer time to heat, or when Ferraris tires exploded in Silverstone.. must of you said “is a Ferrari problem they should fix it” … Well Mercedes should work around their car to fix their problem… Is the same tire for everybody

        1. @j3d89 It’s the same problem for every team too. None of them can attack on these tyres.

        2. @j3d89

          Umm I wonder if you were saying the same for Ferrari last year that didn’t work well with harder tires

          I didn’t.

          Also, it’s not just Mercedes’ problem. Red bull struggled with the tyres as did most of the field. The FIA are trying to fix the inability of cars being able to follow each other closely, and then we have tyres that crumble to bits when following another car. I just don’t understand the point of it.

  10. I’m really fed up with the tyre discussion this year. I guess everybody accepted now that Pirelli wanted to be safe on the new track surfaces. But what just started is a campaign by Mercedes (Hamilton) and Red Bull to influence the championship on their behalf.

    What is the matter with Pirelli? They produce very capable road and racing tyres since ages. They clearly know how to produce a F1 tyre. And instead of telling the teams to sort their issues and get on with it they appear to cave because of media pressure? I really hate this. And i hate that there are no real performance differences between the compounds to enable different strategies.

    I get that Ferrari messed up their relationship with pretty much everybody in the paddock and at the FIA.
    But this is unsporting and choosing sides.

    Tyre behaviour is not only down to the tyre but also very much to the car.

    Mercedes nearly ran away with a double win this race until they had to follow other cars. And Verstappen showed us that he could manage the tyres very well in his Red Bull.

    Pirelli doesn’t need to change the tyres. The teams need to make their aero less fragile in turbulence.
    I presume Mercedes and Red Bull are perfectly capable of that.

    1. Update: Couldn’t find any direct criticism by Red Bull, was still under the impression from comments made by RIC.
      Here you find infos by Red Bull on how Verstappen and possibly Ferrari managed their tyres: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/137148/verstappen-tyre-tactics-unbelievable–horner

      1. That’s called nursing the tyres. Hamilton was doing the same when he was cruising in front.

    2. Update: Couldn’t find any direct criticism by Red Bull, was still under the impression from comments made by RIC.
      Here you find infos by Red Bull on how Verstappen and possibly Ferrari managed their tyres: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/137148/verstappen-tyre-tactics-unbelievable–horner

  11. The tyres need to be changed ASAP, it’s not save to race on them. We need tyres drivers can race safely on instead of these tyres Pirreli has now.

    1. Tires needs to stay the same until the end of the season

  12. But I thought Pirelli and everyone else wanted two stop races so what is the problem?! It sounds to me like Hamilton just wants his special Mercedes tyres at every race. It does seem like they can only actually win a race when Pirelli bring them, (Barcelona, Paul Ricard, and will undoubtedly be the case at Sliverstone next week). Baku was more of a gift than anything else.

    1. Exactly… Real issue is that only Mercedes is forced to a two stop… So they are raging.
      But Mercedes is also 20s faster normally so it is about fair.

  13. Sounds to me he doesn’t have a lot of faith in his team. 1500 of the brightest minds working on his car and teammates car continously and yet he’s asking the tyre manufacturer to change them so his problems are fixed.

    Hamilton’s claim about not being able to race on these tyres didn’t seem to reach Raikkonen and Vettel who passed Ricciardo and him on an older set while being in dirty air for so long and took them to the end.

    Verstappen did it while Ricciardo had to stop again and to say their cars are completely different to each other is reaching for it. And I can only recall that blistering only happened to Ricciardo and Hamilton mainly.

    It’s not a team or Pirelli problem. It’s a driver problem.

    1. It is a car/driver/conditions problem. Lewis handles tires just fine at the front in clear air.

      But when pushing in dirty air his tyres got destroyed.

      I wonder how F1 cars would drive on Le Mans Michelins. Would they br 4-6s off quali pace? Or would they pit on first or final lap and drive a majority on fastest tyre?

  14. I guess he just should have put his head down and drive the car. Just like Vettel, Hamilton now seems to suffer from having driven upfront, in clean air for way too long. It makes sense, they can only practice racing when in the car. And when this car is always upfront you lose skills. Maybe Hamilton should take up karting in weekends with no GP.

  15. I cannot stop myself from laughing on this.. its either the car or the pitwall or anyone else except him. I wasn’t expected this behavior of him really because he is too high in my mind.

    1. I agree. And thinner tires wouldn’t have helped him, his car broke down, not his tires.

  16. EGOIST!!!

  17. Pirelli should get the boot.
    Before 2011 you could count with your fingers the occasions in which the tyres were the major focus. Since then, its mostly about it. Whether they are design to degrade or are suffering catastrophic failures. Its all about tyres

  18. Pirelli should get the boot.
    Before 2011 you could count with your fingers the occasions in which the tyres were the major focus. Since then, its mostly about it. Whether they are design to degrade or are suffering catastrophic failures. Its all about tyres

    If you have as many fingers as there were races. :) Watch races. Youtube has so many races, F1, and others. Racing’s most important technical aspect is tires. Always has been. Tires are the heart of racing. Managing tires (heat, wear, blistering, patch size and spring rate via pressure, etc, etc) is a core fundamental racing skill. From karting to F1, every race. Go visit any race anywhere and just look at how Parc Ferme works. The obsession is tires (and sometimes fuel, wrt Parc Ferme).

  19. The question Hamilton presents is whether you want to have a race that is about “attacking” or about “race craft.” This is an old debate in F1—everyone wants both but you often can’t have both. In this case Hamilton likely is being salty, after seeing a variety of calamities destroy his likely win, and picking out another thing that thwarted him in his own race, in which he needed to attack.

    As for Ferrari, they didn’t blister, but neither did they push hard enough to catch Verstappen, who was using both reduced engine power and going easy on his tires. (I doubt that suddenly RBR became much faster than Ferrari.) I’m guessing that Ferrari, after seeing Hamilton’s and Ricciardo’s woes, decided to stand pat. And you would thus have to say that, if you wanted a race with attacking, these tires didn’t offer it. I wouldn’t be too hard on Pirelli, because race day had much higher temps than practice, and if this scenario arose in practice, teams would have approached set up and strategy differently.

    1. spot on, thx.

    2. @dmw Exactly. The end result of this is that we will see many more races where the drivers simply drive slow to reach the end of the race. It wasn’t as bad a Monaco perhaps, but this is track where overtaking should have been possible and not just because the driver who tried an overtake had then wasted his tyres.

  20. I don’t think Mercedes needs any ounce or milimeter of tyre assistence.

    But Mercedes tire issues were due overdriving… And why do we even have tires that cannot take some punishment?

  21. Michael Brown (@)
    2nd July 2018, 16:28

    Another year, another season of Pirelli helping Mercedes.

  22. He is upset he cant just sit in the best car racking up stats all day long. Deal with it.

  23. Why can Lewis not manage his tyres like Raikonen, Vettel, Alonso and Max?
    He is supposed to be the best.
    Look what 20 year old Max did: he kept his weakest tyre cooler during the race by taking corners differently.

  24. Don’t quite understand the lack of overtaking/racing in this race. If anything we’ve had a fair bit of overtakes in this race, especially in the front end. Ric/kimi both ways then vet/ham. Very rarely do we see overtaking taking place in the front end of the grid. As Martin Brundle says the best races tend to happen when it’s a borderline 2 or 3 stopper race. If anything F1 should actually be moving towards these kind of races, not away from it. Also, Vettel’s overtake of Hamilton was very similar to what happened to Vettel in Austin last year. So yeah I don’t see any reason for Pirelli to bring thinner gauge tyres.

    1. @savagebaboon Because that overtaking only happened by drivers who then had ruined tyres. Ricciardo and Hamilton tried to race and the tyres disintegrated in no time.

      The reason to bring thinner tyres is to allow the drivers to actually race instead of nurse the tyres till the end. This has nothing to do with Ferrari or Mercedes. It has to do with either watching a procession of nurses versus watching a race.

      1. I’d think Paul Ricard and Spain was more of a procession than Austria, Canada can also join the list as well. The only reason Paul Ricard was interesting was because of Vettel and Bottas crashing. The midfields always tend a have a bit more action regardless of the tyre gauges. The point is, with the cars being this close you’d need these sorts of offsets in tyre performance/strategy mishaps to make the races interesting. Obviously, there are other ways to improve racing – simpler aero for example. But to think thinner gauges would improve racing is not correct based on previous races. Was Hamilton really racing in either Spain or Paul Ricard?

  25. Can someone please explain to me how is blistering related to the tread length of the tyres? Thinner means less blistering, why?

    1. More tire tread means the tire creates/retains more heat

  26. Im still surprised at the double dnf of the mercs, this race asphalt seem like a tyre killer, let s not talk about those kurbs, like hitting a rock at high speed, even for me the lap is rediculously short its weird when u see lap time of 1:02,…. sec for a f1 race

  27. After a couple of clear domination Mercedes and Hamilton gave us ( the fans) a line of bull stating that they wanted competition – yet as soon as Ferrari caught us they cried about the tire type and got Pirelli ( who clearly are in Mercedes’ pocket) to change to tires hurting Ferrari and helping Mercedes and Hamilton back to the top which is all they really care about anyway.
    Now that again Ferrari manged the tires better than Mercedes and Hamilton they are crying that the tires are no good .Exactly how much help from Pirelli and F1 does Mercedes and Hamilton need in order to win ?
    Why one might ask why is Hamilton not loved like a Raikkonen or admired like a Schumacher ? Just look at how he is acting -once again !.
    I have ALWAYS cheered for and admired those who have gone from rags to riches but, I cannot admire or support Hamilton because of his lack of character and appreciation for his good fortune ( like signing on with the greatest constructor F1 has ever seen ) .
    Nor can I support Mercedes as it has used the system and been given everything it has asked for ( like having F1 agree to adopt the to a hybrid-turbo formula right after it developed that type of PU for a decade and all others getting about 1 year to develop the PU and chassis ,having a tire change upon demand where a competitor ( Ferrari ) managed to work the existing tire type better that it ( Mercedes ) could and having the largest team ( 1,500 people compared say to Haas’ 218 person staff or Red Bull’s less than 450 )and virtually unlimited funding ( more than Ferrari and red Bull’s combined ).
    Yet even with all of these advantages Lewis Hamilton has the nerve to complain !
    Why has the popularity of F1 declined each season for years ? Why are venues leaving the circuit ? Why does the “home of F1” ,Silverstone say that without a new and better deal it will not be able to continue to host a race ?
    Just listen to Lewis Hamilton and it will all be so clear .

  28. Drive faster and pit more often. The fans have to put up with this no racing, real bummer. 2 or 3 mandatory pit stops I don’t care but that slow driving nonsense is killing F 1 Mr. Liberty…

  29. Hamilton’s comments are just another reason why Pirelli might just wonder why they bother with F1. The tyres they make for F1 are made to the specification F1 gave them. Whether or not one particular type of tyre was thinner or built better is beside the point, the question is whether those “special tyres” were on the list of options given to the teams by Pirelli: they weren’t.
    Mercedes doesn’t have a choice on the weather, they don’t have a choice on the engine spec, they don’t have a choice on the track configuration that will be used, etc. So having a limited choice on tyres is better than many other important aspects that affect the performance of their car.
    Hamilton has decided tyre options is partly to blame for Mercedes leaving the Red Bull track without any points, overlooking the primary reason why they finished without points was because of problems with the car, not because of the tyres.

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