Qualifying tyres?

[Kaps]

Can anyone please tell me in what exact seasons were qualifying tyres allowed?

I know it was sometime during the first half of the 80's, but dunno when exactly.

Thank you!

[D-Type]

It's not a simple question. Effectively qualifying tyres were allowed from the start of motor racing; but they were most certainly not used until the seventies or so. It would be easier to look for when qualifying tyres were not allowed.

There were various agreements where the tyre companies agreed not to supply them and if there was a single tyre supplier situation, whether by regulation or by circumstance then the supplier refused to supply them. But that doesn't mean they weren't allowed.

The only really effective and totally enforceable ban was when it became mandatory to start the race on the tyres you qualified on.

[Rollo]

It would be easier to look for when qualifying tyres were not allowed..

1992.

[Valve Bounce]

They were quite astonishing - good for only 1 single hot lap.

[Mark]

The only really effective and totally enforceable ban was when it became mandatory to start the race on the tyres you qualified on.

Not entirely. The 'race what you qualified' rule only came in with the advent of the parc ferme rules. Before that, and specifically when Goodyear was the sole tyre supplier, the teams could have 7 sets of tyres per car per race weekend, but all the tyres were exactly the same.

The fact that cars usually did four qualifying runs each on new tyres, as well as practice laps usually meant that at some point during the race cars would have to race on tyres they had qualified with.

[D-Type]

As I said: "It's not a simple question" ;)

[Kaps]

But wasn' it sometime during the mid (or at least late) 80's that qualifying tyres got specifically banned?

And I mean the "real qualifiers", that only lasted a lap or two, the ones you could never race on?

[Rollo]

Nigel Mansell who put his Williams on pole, found the conditions to be dry and dull. Goodyear who had become the sole tyre supplier for 1992, did not provide the three lap "gumball" qualifying tyres that they had in previous years and were keen to force the FIA's hand to have them banned permanently.
Formula One Yearbook, 1992/3 - with regards the opening Sth African GP.

[Kaps]

So that would mean 1991 was the last season of those?

If my memory still serves me right, it was the year of Pirelli "super-sticky" ones?

[philipbain]

So that would mean 1991 was the last season of those?

If my memory still serves me right, it was the year of Pirelli "super-sticky" ones?

Yes, 1991 was the last season of qualifiers, as when tyre competition was resumed in 1997 rules were instated that effectively banned qualifiers. On the subject of Pirelli's qualifiers, they were very good, not only sticky as hell but they could also be "reconditioned" by scrubbing them down so they could do more than a single run on a set of tyres. Pirelli's problem came in the races when they didnt have a suitable equivalent of the Goodyear "C" compound tyre, the most common tyre in use in the early 90s (Goodyear had A, B, C & D compounds going from hardest to softest, A was the high speed tyre for Monza and Hockenheim, B & C were the usual mid-range tyres and D was used for low speed tracks such as Monaco and circuits with new surfaces, such as Barcelona in '91). Pirelli left the sport at the end of '91, a shame really as I thought thier F1 tyres were promising if unfulfilled.

[Kaps]

Thanks very much philipbain!

Most interesting read!