Schuey: The tyres are too important now

Michael Schumacher has said that the tyres are now playing a much to large role in a race, claiming that drivers are not able to drive to their abilities, because they have to consider the tyres first.

It was a test for Pirelli on Sunday, as the Italian tyre manufacturer delivered the tyres for the Bahrain GP for the first time. Pirelli entered F1 in 2011, after Bridgestone pulled out, but the race ni Bahrain last year was cancelled due to the civil uprising taking place. Pirelli brought the soft and the medium tyre to the race, and the majority of the drivers had to pit three times.

“The main thing I feel unhappy about is everyone has to drive well below a driver’s, and in particular, the car’s limits to maintain the tyres,” said Schumacher.

“I just question whether the tyres should play such a big importance, or whether they should last a bit longer, and that you can drive at normal racing car speed and not cruise around like we have a safety car.

“I’m not happy about the situation, let’s see what happens in future. If it was a one-off car issue, you could say it’s up to us to deal with it.

“But basically it is everybody, with maybe one or two exceptions, and if it is 80% of the field that has this problem, then maybe the tyre supplier should think about that.”

Paul Hembery, the director of motorsport for Pirelli, said he was very surprised by the comments from Schumacher, and disappointed even.

“I’m disappointed to hear those comments from someone of Michael’s experience. Others were getting on with the job and getting their tyres to work. His comments during winter testing were that he was very happy with the tyres, and now he seems to have changed his tune.”

 

Alguersuari joins di Grassi at Pirelli

Former Toro Rosso driver Jaime Alguersuari are joining former Virgin driver Lucas di Grassi, as the tyre company´s official tyre testers for 2012.

Jaime Alguersuari lost his job at Toro Rosso, as the Italian team dropped both him and Sebastien Buemi for Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne. He was later signed by the BBC 5 Radio team as a commentator. Lucas di Grassi signed with Pirelli back in July last year, so he is happy to be staying with the tyre supplier.

“I’m delighted to be back for another year with Pirelli after an extremely successful first season of collaboration,” said di Grassi. “We learned a lot together and so we are both very happy to continue. This is a good opportunity for me to carry on the work that we started last year, which allows me to compare and contrast with all the tyres I have tested so far. These tyres are now a fantastic feature of Formula 1.”

Alguersuari are very excited about the opportunity, which he hopes can bring him back as a full-time racing driver soon.

“I’m very happy indeed to have this fantastic opportunity,” said Alguersuari. “A week ago it was my birthday, when I turned 22, and now Pirelli has given me the best possible present. I can’t wait to get started with this very important and challenging job of developing the new tyres for the future, which I’m looking forward to a lot.

“I have a huge desire to get behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car again and return to competition, so this is a brilliant chance for me.”

14,949 kilometres later

Italian tyre supplier Pirelli, were very pleased with how the first pre-season test went. The four days in Jerez, Spain, saw the team deliver a whopping 1,176 tyres, drizzled neatly over the eleven teams present.

One of the problems of 2011´s tyres, were the small bits that came off during racing, the so-called marbles. That issue seems sorted now, with the 2012 tyres seemingly lasting longer, and also there are a smaller gap between the different tyre compounds. An encouraging prospect, believes Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery.

“The tyres performed exactly in line with our expectations in Jerez.”

“We’ve had a very positive reaction from the drivers and teams so far, who have reported more grip at the rear, fewer ‘marbles’ and a reduced lap time difference between the compounds as well as faster overall performance – which is precisely what we wanted. We’re happy with the level of degradation and we had no issues, as was the case for all of last year.

“But as the temperatures in Jerez were very low and the teams have also concentrated on other areas than tyres it’s too early to draw any detailed conclusions. We’ll see more tyre development work at the next test in Barcelona, as together with the teams, we fully understand the implications of the latest rules.

“However, with all three of our available slick tyres having set a fastest time, it’s a clear sign that we are on course to meet our objectives.”

Petrov signs as Pirelli tester

Vitaly Petrov has not managed to land himself a seat in any of the 12 F1 teams, but has apparently signed as official tyre tester for Pirelli. At least that´s what several sites are reporting on Wednesday.

Vitaly Petrov will be Pirelli´s test driver for 2012, his manager Oksana Kosachenko said in a statement Wednesday. Petrov lost his seat when Lotus decided to bring back Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean as their drivers for 2012. The Russian made a couple of comments towards the end of the 2011 season, which didn´t help him stay, to say the least. If these comments has anything to do with him losing the seat, we don´t know.

According to Paul Hembrey, Pirelli´s direcor of motorsport, the rumours of Petrov signing with Pirelli, are not true. “Just to clarify Vitaly is here as a guest, we do not have a test car never mind talking test drivers. So no truth in rumours.”

Right now Pirelli is using an old Toyota chassis, which is out of date, and so the tyre manufacturer is looking for a new car. Only problem is, that the teams are not happy of one chassic being used over another, thus giving one team a helping hand.

Petrov is still free to go racing if a contract emerges. There are still rumours circulating, that Jarno Trulli might be replaced over at Lotus.

Kosachenko has managed to stir up some confusion, if nothing else, in first reacting to the rumours about a test role at Pirelli for Petrov, and then soon after dismiss the previous comments. Perhaps Petrov should shop for another agent….

 

Pirelli: No structural failure on Vettel´s tyre

Tyre manufacturer Pirelli has ruled out a structural tyre failure as the cause of Sebastian Vettel´s early retirement in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, due to a puncture on his right rear tyre.

Pirelli has used two full days to assess the damage and the tyre from the incident and have found no failure to the structure of the tyre. A statement was issued.

“Following an extensive investigation of the circumstances that led to Sebastian Vettel’s right-rear tyre suddenly deflating on the opening lap of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, a structural failure of the tyre has been ruled out as the cause by Pirelli’s engineers,” Pirelli’s statement reads. “The tyre in question was a part of a set of PZero Yellow Softs that the Red Bull Racing driver had used to qualify on pole the day before.

“Having subjected the tyre to minute analysis, structural failure of the tyre or valve has been ruled out as a cause of the incident.  Track debris or other outside circumstances cannot be excluded as a possible cause.

Pirelli´s motor sport director, Paul Hembery, said of the analysis:

“We can confirm that a structural failure was not the cause of Sebastian Vettel’s deflation in Abu Dhabi, a conclusion that we have arrived at together with Red Bull Racing following a detailed examination and analysis of the remains of the tyre.

“We cannot rule out debris on the track causing damage to the tyre, which then provoked a deflation, but having looked at the track closely there is no direct evidence of this.”

The closest you ever get

Pirelli have recorded a video, of Lucas Di Grassi completing a lap of the Spanish Catalunya circuit, with a helmet mounted camera that is as close to a drivers eyes as possible.

There are plenty of cameras covering a F1 race these days. There are the platform cameras, which only covers a specified area, the steady cams, which are operated by cameramen and offers a little more freedom. Then there is the sky-cam, a wire-mounted camera used to follow cars down a straight for example, and of couse the multiple cameras on the cars.

Some time ago I posted a video of Bruno Senna doing a lap of Spa-Franchorchamps with his mobile phone taped to his helmet, and while that gave a really good interpretation of how a drivers view is, Pirelli have gone and made it better.

They have simply fitted a high-tech mini-camera just above di Grassi´s visor, and aprt from a couple of inches, this is the closest we´ll ever get to see how a drivers view is.

Enjoy!

FIA issue warning on camber rules

The FIA have issued the teams with a warning for this week´s Italian GP at Monza, stating that if the camber settings are not within the rules, a driver or the team can be excluded from the race.

At each GP Pirelli issues the team with a camber limit, to which the teams are of course free to follow or not. At the Belgian GP a forthnight ago, Red Bull put their camber too high. Instead of the proposed 4 degrees, they turned it to 4.3 degrees, causing severe blistering on the tyres. For Monza, the FIA have stepped up the game on the camber issue, saying that they will exclude any team or driver who exceeds the camber limit, on grounds of safety. A statement from the governing body says:

“Further to the discussion in the team managers meeting on Thursday I can confirm that we will be checking camber settings after qualifying in order to ensure that the recommendations made by Pirelli are adhered to.

“Any car found to be outside of these recommendations will be reported to the stewards as being in breach of Article 2.3 of the F1 Technical Regulations (Dangerous Construction).

“In order to assist with the procedure, and for use as a reference should you wish to disassemble any suspension components during parc ferme, we ask that you provide Jo Bauer with a qualifying set-up sheet in a sealed envelope prior to the start of qualifying practice.”

For Monza, Pirelli have asked the teams to stay within a 3.25 degree limit on the front camber.

Pirelli: No more hard tyres

Italian tyre supplier, Pirelli, have decided to scrap their hard tyre compound entirely.

The decision has yet to be taken officially by Pireli, but the company´s motorsport director, Paul Hembery, say that the performance of the medium tyre have proven to be more resilient and durable than expected, and a return to the hard tyre compound therefore seems unlikely.

“I don´t think we´ll se the hard compound again,” said Hembery. “I think it´s probably too hard and that the medium is proving sufficiently robust for the aggressive circuits we´ve still got to come. So don´t think we´ll be going the hard route.”

This season is the first since Pirelli returned to deliver tyres for the top flight, and Hembery admits that there have been issues that needed ironing out, before teams and drivers were satisfied. But he feels they are on the right track, and that the initial issues have been mended.

“Probably next season the medium will become the hard,” Hembery added. “We´ll  probably slot something in between the current softs and mediums – we want to keep about one second between each. The super soft and soft gap is about right to be honest, because you´ve got a one second speed advantage but you´ve got a clear degradation and limitation  on use. If we could replicate that now with a new medium and a new hard I think we´ll be well placed.

Ferrari have come under the spotlight after talks about scrapping the hard tyre compound began, because both Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa have struggled on the hard tyres. However, Hembery says that Pireli is not favoriting the team, the explanation is simply that the races that will take place in warmer climate, such as Singapore, Japan, Korea and India is better for the cars performance while on the medium tyres.