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I'm happy to see the many responses and ideas being floated.
Ideas are what will help make positive progress possible.
Another far-out idea may be to redesign the pit-lane layout on most tracks to reduce the total time a pit-stop takes compared to the total time a car staying on track takes to get from the pit-lane entrance to the pit-lane exit. In theory these could even be made to be equal, so teams would not see changing tires as a disadvantage. Thus in theory on-track competitive racing will not be affected by the need to conserve tires. They could go all out all the time and lose nothing (or very little time) for a tire change. Then the tire compound could be adjusted to appropriately allow for two or three tire changes.
Again just an idea.
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I think for as regards tires, given we are not talking about endurance races, adopting the same approach as MotoGP or SBK could be a good idea. Tires designed to last precisely the race distance. If you do you homework, you'll be fine, if you dare too much, you shall be left behind...:D
Seriously, I don't like races results being affected by tires as we saw when there were two companies providing them, as teams are not responsible for the tires, and can't really chose the company as they would for what regards other components where you have more companies that provide them. It's somehow as with engines, just it is possible for a team to bring its own engine with good perforance as well, while it is impossible even for Ferrari or McLaren to do that with tires.
On the other hand the lack of a second tire company allows the existing one to bring average tires, or even bad tires if Bernie is into that to "shake things a little".
So given that all tire manufacturers should guarantee a "decent" level of performance, or even a similar performance, they should also provide tires designed to last a precise amount of kilometers.
At this point pit stops are quite pointless, so I wouldn't mind a straight race with no stops and a tire designed to last 305/310 km. Otherwise they could provide a tire designed to last say 200 km, so one stop would be mandatory, or even less for more stops. That way each team should decide which tire to use the most and how to push with it.
I still think that as far as tire manufacturers don't get points themselves, tires shouldn't be a critical aspect for the final result (from a spectator's point of view).
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[quote=Matra et Alpine;933554]You've not lived till you hear a Ferrari Flat-12, a Matra V12, DFV, Renault Turbo, BMW Turbo and many other favourites[/quote]
I personally would love to see V12s,10s and 8s battling with eachother but in reality you will probably end up with a 3 tier formula. Though, Schumacher won in '94 with a V8 against 10s and 12s.
Hopefully Michelin will return to F1 and then we can see Bridgestone actually being pushed. The tyre war was great for F1 with two completely different phylosophies (Michelin relying on their sticky tyres laying down rubber and Bridgestone relying on the 'flex' and dynamics of their tyre to give them grip)
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I am with Leon in that I don't like tire war. It takes a huge part of the performance out of Teams' hands and makes it a dominant factor in the result. Shitty car on good tire flatters the so-so team and makes good car without that tire looks bad. And that just isn't fair nor the point of the constructor championship. On a one tire championship they may as well use round, donut shape brick as tire and have at that. Provided all the bricks are the same for everybody and set to set are consistent(something Goodyear is horrible at in NASCAR).
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But when we went to single tyres in has bought nothing to the spectacle of F1. I understand your point about levelling out the playing field for drivers but I think other factors of competition are worth it providing the performance deficit between them is not massive.
On another note, if Michelin return to F1 apparently want the cars to adopt LeMans style wheels (19" or 18" I think?) so they don't have to waste more money on development and also want each team to pay £4million a seasons supply.
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Tire doesn't improve the spectacle one way or another. Spectator can't tell the 5 sec increase or decrease in lap time if all are running together. Spectator will be able to tell like in 2005 when a Toyota or something go faster than a Ferrari. Is that really the natural order of the car or is that the superior Michelin flatters the the shitty cars? F1 is a drivers and constructor championship. When you add stuff like multiple suppliers you are diluting the picture.
Personally I think if Michelin wants to supply F1 they can at least bother to make F1 tires.
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[quote=TheScrutineer;933670]I personally would love to see V12s,10s and 8s battling with eachother but in reality you will probably end up with a 3 tier formula.[/quote]
I think your view is biased by only having seen CONTROLLED engines - ie the V10 and now the V8.
If we truly allowed any fueling strategy, any tyre strategy and any engine but operating within a money cap for the year then it woudl certainly be more interesting.
I think the last thing we shodul be doing is "levelling out" the technology.
May as well go watch Formula Ford in that case -- which [sales pitch] if you go along to your local track and support your local clubs you will see WAY much more intersting racing [/sales pitch].
I want both in an ideal world :)
Sadly we can't draw parallels with MotoGP as by virtue of their small size and horrible aero bikes will always make for better racing.
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[quote=Matra et Alpine;933718]Sadly we can't draw parallels with MotoGP as by virtue of their small size and horrible aero bikes will always make for better racing.[/quote]
My argument was only about how they use tires, everything else would be comparing apples to...a good steak.
I'm somehow with Michelin wanting "real world" tires for F1 cars, even if that would implya mojor redesign of the cars and their philosophies. Nowadays tires are basically the only decently deformable part of the car, so lower profiles would demand a completely new idea of the suspensions.
Not that it can't be done.
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There is nothing "real world" about it though. Road car tire and racing tire are so durastically different that it is just an appearance for appearance sake, while at the same time demanding a huge amount of extra spending for the teams to re-do a ton of existing design just for the sake of it.
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With the 13" wheels I beleive the cars use the 'flex' of the thicker tyre with stiffer suspension. So I would assume a high profile tyre, being stiffer, would rely on a softer suspension set up. Which performs better? Higher or lower profiles? (I know on road cars its higher profile but Im talking about F1)
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Hadn't read Michelin were proposing different approach , Leon.
Yes I think that would make sense in allowing more manufacturers in.
BUT, there would then be less exotic tyre material and design undertaken in the "pinnacle" I think ? It would depend a lot on how they controlled it.
Any major change would have to be done with at least a season in advance otherwise some teams might be better/worse off by random luck on their chassis usae of the tyre.
Lower profile would be an issue on a couple of fronts. Suspension cannot move as rapidly as a tyre wall deformation, so big handling issues. Very difficult to design tyre carcass so it will stay in contact with the rim AND cope with acceleration and cornering stresses modern grip gives. ( THere's a reason very low profile is used by ricers and posers and not real race cars ) Higher profile "perform better" when we moved from 85 to 50/55 thus removing lots of the flex on lateral forces ( I have one exception I can share later ). Beyond that it's cosmetics and suspension setup to match what the customer wants to SEE. Get it too lwo and the centre of the tyre is NOT MAKING effective contact -- and that measn loss of traction.
Again, I'd like to let the designer go free-reign on wheel/tyre shape ( size needs limited to control contact patch size - maybe that's ALL that they should control :) )
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[quote=Matra et Alpine;933802]Suspension cannot move as rapidly as a tyre wall deformation, so big handling issues. [/quote]
If that the case, then it seems better to have the profile of the tyre handling the ride than the suspension, like we have now. Do LeMans prototypes race with low profiles because of sportscar regs, as there suspension layout is similar to single seaters (double wishbones/pushrods)?
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I don't know if it's the regs, but the all LMPs use pushrod actulates suspension, and the newer factory cars(Audi R15 2009/2010, Audi R10, Peugeot 908, Acura ARX-02 and the 2003 Bentley Speed 8) use torsion bars like F1 cars.
Also, LMP cars run wider tires, especially up front(the Audi R15 in both guises run 13 inch tires on 13.5 inch rims with a half inch =/- deviation, for example).
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Argument can be made for both I think. Tire flex and stiffly sprung spring and damper means undamped vibration(or rather, uncontrolled damping) since you cannot control the damping on the tire spring. Part of the reason why F1 cars needs something like Inerter(aka "J"-Damper) because the limited amount of actual suspension movement the car experiences. Sportscar's wheel sizes is limited of course, but why 18" now I have no idea. It used to be 17" or 16". Even now though some cars even run stagger rim-diameter sizes. For example, Super GT cars(a lot of them, not all) runs 19" Front and 18" rear wheel, The FIA GT Spec Nissan GTR also runs 18" Front and 17" Rear, so there are definitely some consideration there. The only problem in most cases is if you can get the tires you want made for you. Or you'll the same problem Tyrrell P34 have....Also to note that both Super GT and FIA GT artificially manages the competition through ballast as well, so pick your poison really. I stand by my preference to spec tires though. Enough series in the world that does it and enough to seperate people who knows what they are doing to those who don't...and its certainly cheaper.