TBK-Light.com

'the team that would provide the car AND DRIVER'

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

- Where has the 90% figure come from? Is that just a value Hembrey has quoted?
- So Mercedes used no telemetry whatsoever? I'd find that hard to believe. Even if they didn't put new parts on the car they still got a load of free running and data about the current car which can prove helpful.
- Well either "90%" of it was for 2014 or all of it? They did get some running on the tyres that will be used from Canada onwards.....?
- Well that's fortunate for Lewis/Nico to get even more acclimatising/setup time in the Merc.
- I know where it was performed, however they hid the fact they were using a 2013 Specification Car.

Doing 1000km is something which weighs so heavily against the backdrop of a testing ban and limited pre-season testing that the potential for changing the game and/or pecking order is incredibly high, much higher that some of the previous infractions we've seen, such as a rear wing being 2mm to low, flexible wing or something. Ultimately it's 1000km more than anyone else got in the middle of the year that could heavily swing the title race one way or another, or put Mercedes into a battle they had no chance of being in previously.

That's the issue.

1. Were other teams offered?
2. Was the W04 allowed.

Ferrari conducted a similar test in early May with de La Rosa at the wheel of an F150 (2011 car). But that was an old car...

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

I'm undecided on this. It does sound suspicious, but as we're missing most of the facts surrounding what actually happened I'm going to pass judgement for now. I'm sure we'll have a better idea in the next couple of days.

Don't forget we're talking about Ross Brawn here, master of finding loopholes.

The W04 was allowed, yes. That was why Pirelli went to the FIA in the first place. They were getting useless data out of the Toyota that never was and needed to use a current car.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Like Schumachers action in the last lap in Monaco three years ago, you mean?

Perfect solution: lets keep Pirelli and ADD Michelin!

A tyre war under the current regs would be beyond epic.

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

True but he'd probably claim he knew nothing about it and in fact it was all Piquet's doing.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Sadly Pirelli have been very clear in saying that they don't want a tyre war because it would raise cost's

I think a tyre war would be good providing the regulations are changed so that teams can actually pick the compounds they want to run & are not stuck with having to make a mandatory stop to run each compound (Never liked that rule).


I do feel a bit sorry for Pirelli now though, There getting hammered from all sides it seems this year (Although rightfully so in some instances).


Also to correct my earlier post, It wasn't Dunlop I read had meetings with Bernie, it was Hankook.

If you consider Michelin absolutely trashing Pirelli to be beyond epic, yes.......

Pirelli would have a very hard time competing with Continental, would be trashed by Goodyear and mega trashed by Bridgestone and specially Michelin



Of course they don't wanna a tire war. Not against the big companies which have tires with much more technology on it and, therefore, provide a lot more grip than anything Pirelli can make. I think Pirelli would accept tire war against Yokohama or Kumho, but that's it.

Thanks for the Hankook info. I wouldn't doubt they indeed talked with Bernie or have interests in getting into F1 because Hankook is clearly investing and promoting itself.

They are already all over the place in Europe's biggest market(ask Mattzel about that).......

After reading the stewards findings i make it out to be thus. The FIA said Ok to Pirelli's request, then proceeded to do fuck all about it and seem to have left it up to Pirelli and Mercedes to notify all other teams about what they were doing, which appears they haven't. It seems we have another instance of the FIA under Jean Tod of kicking the can down the road and blaming all and sundry on everyone else. I find it laughable that the FIA's response was "Well we said OK, but didn't hear back about it, so we didn't do anything about it". So they didn't confirm with Pirelli if they wanted to go ahead with it? This just reeks of incompetence from the FIA more than anything else.

It all is really convenient for both Pirelli and Mercedes. The way the tyres killed the Mercedes pace in Barcelona was really bad publicity for Pirelli.
I think Pirelli is really happy that Mercedes have solved those issues in Monaco...

Yes Monaco isn't so hard on the tyres, but come on, Mercedes tyres lasted longer than their competitors, where as the Merc trashed their tyres after 3 laps in all other races, it would be foolish to say that wasn't because of the test.

Only way to fix this unfair advantage is to give all other teams 1000km extra testing millage before Canada, but that won't happen.

I think Pirelli is going to leave F1 anyway. I think they are very mad at the whole situation.

The problem they feel is that the do not get any positive publicity out of it, despite being the sole tyre supplier. They were asked to spice up the races a bit with tyres that would not last a whole race so to speak. Also last year we had some amazing races due to tyre wear.

We, the racing fans know this. But the average person, watching the news, and the commentator says something along the lines of "The Mercs had a bad race due to the Pirellis", then that is just very bad advertisment. Because the average person does not know:
1/ all cars are on Pirellis
2/ they were asked to produce tyres to spice up the races in the first place
3/ Pirelli could make tyres that would last much, much longer

Yea, it must be unimaginably bad press, even though the tyres are made exactly how F1 told them to. If Pirelli leave for that reason, I don't see which manufacturer would want to step into that role of guaranteed bad publicity.

More people simply have to understand that hard tyres equals shit racing and maybe give credit to a company like Pirelli that are able to produce such a broad range of compounds for different tracks with only a few occasions like Spain where they get it wrong. I respect that level of tyre knowledge more than simply chickening out and bringing the hardest possible compound every week like Goodyear do in NASCAR.

What really winds me up is how when Pirelli came into the sport, they said something along the lines of "we'll only provide these kind of tyres if everyone in F1 supports us and we don't get bad press out of this" (paraphrasing obviously). Fast forward a couple of years and it didn't take long for the drivers and teams to show themselves for the whiny little shits they all are. I mean, why build a car to suit the regulations if you can just bitch and moan until they get changed?

Agree with the sentiments here. Whilst I don't like Pirellis current set, they have still been awesome overall. They're the best thing that's happened to F1. They've done more than stupid shaped wings, DRS and KERS combined. Pirelli should be supported publicly by all teams, and if complaints have to be made they should be done in a positive, constructive way.

I don't believe the tyres should be changed to suit Mercedes and Red Bull. But I do believe that 4-5 stops is double what should be happening, and that the tyre delimitation issues need solved. But in 3 years, Pirelli have made 1 bad choice? Yeah I can live with that. They still deserve all the praise in the world, and massive support from everyone in the paddock for helping F1 get to the state it's in.

Playing devil's advocate, I don't think the teams are whinging about 1 bad set of Pirellis. A lot of them have been critical since early last year about the softer tyre's impact on the sport and the focus on conserving, and they probably think F1 will continue to prosper on the old boring hard tyres.

I'm indifferent really, I think in a way the current state of things is unsustainable, all the rules engineered to provide unpredictable racing, and eventually it has to return to some level of boring normality.

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Completely agree.

4-5 was too much. But still like what Pirelli did with F1. It annoys me that teams like RBR are screaming the loudest for immediate change while they where at the centre of controversy since like 2010, and always came away pretty good with it.

Problem is that the teams have learnt that they can get their way if they scream and cry enough.

AutoSport have seen an E-mail sent out by FOTA last year to all the teams, Pirelli & the FIA regarding Pirelli's request for tyre testing.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/107726