Thinking about it, I have privately concluded that the Pirelli tyre minimal wear issue is simply down to the track, for one simple reason, those drivers that are normally considered hard on the rubber managed to generate heat and get them working those that arn't didn't, simples as the saying goes. Any takers.
Stating the obvious? Although I think it is also to do with the car set up. Ferrari must have done loads around this (they are traditionally real good on their tyres) and been caught unawares when Oz came up.
Autosport did a track-by-track guide to each event in their season preview, and one of the things they rated was tyre wear at each circuit. I wish I hadn't left the bloody mag at home now.
Right the results are as follows (5 being high tyre wear) Aus 2 Mal 3 Chi 2 Tur 3 Spa 3 Mon 3 Can 5 Eur 2 GB 4 Nur 2 Hun 2 Bel 4 Ita 2 Sin 4 Suz 4 Kor 4 Abu 2 Bra 3
Brilliant, rep. Malaysia should see similar tyre wear to Barcelona then. That does tally with the tyre wear being lower than expected, I don't think Perez will be escaping with a one stopper in Sepang.
It will be a lot hotter and probably a hell of a lot wetter so I don't think we'll be seeing a Barcelona just yet somehow! McLaren could have one stopped I reckon from what Hamilton was saying.
The problem with attempting a one stopper is that if you get it wrong and have to do an extra stop your race is screwed. They seemed incredibly light on their tyres but it would be very brave to try a one stopper.
I agree AG especially at this point in the season. It's more of a 'we've got nothing to lose' gamble for a behind team/driver at the end of the season. Especially given they are still working out the tyres, they have to be sensible.
Some good points here and I believe the original author's point is valid. However, I still find it difficult to reconcile such a difference in so little time between testing and Oz, as entirely due to the track. - It probably is this. I just find it hard to get my head around it being the whole explanation.
Yeah, does sound simplistic doesn't it, but I can't think of another explanation, perhap the next race will shed more light on it, one thing for sure, it looks like the tyres will be the factor that will decide who wins the WDC.
For those interested, GPUpdate have completed a decent analysis of the tyres in Melbourne here which might be of interest. Theres also a pdf file of the data they used.
Thanks Canary, I'd not seen this before. However, it doesn't reveal anything that we did not see with our own eyes. I am hoping that someone will discover that Pirelli made some subtle changes to the compound, somewhere towards the end of the winter testing phase. Of course this would be highly unusual, but it is possible that they conceded that they had gone too far with the idea of producing rubber lacking durability, and that it threatened their public credibility. Whatever the reason, the higher than anticipated durability was a good thing as far as I am concerned, due to the fact that it made more demands upon the driver and reduced the contribution of pit-crews (relative to stopping more often).~
Thanks for the relative tyre wear at venues. Now there are 4 tyres - Wet/inter/Prime and Option. Pirelli will select compound for the last 2 types at each race. So the decision is to go for hard/medium/soft or supersoft. I read that cars are allocated 11 sets of dry tyres meaning Primes and Options. How many sets are allocated for Wets and Inters? At Sepang if the weather varies between dry and wet on testing days then the number of sets left could be interesting. Can anybody advise me?
I believe (though can't prove it) that the number of wet tyres is effectively unlimited. Dodgy Wet tyres on a wet track would be dangerous.
