Tyre compound rules

[Mark]

So we have a situation where we are bascially back to 'race' tyres and 'qualifying' tyres. And the qualy tyres are pretty useless for much more than 5 laps in the race.

I'm sure it provides a bit more interest in the race but it's all rather false to say the least.

At least with the rules last year where the two tyres were quite close you'd get different teams using different ones.

[Dave B]

It was far from an ideal situation, wasn't it? However I say give it time. In Australia the teams' inexperience with these tyres was compounded (geddit?) by the relatively cool temperatures.

Hopefully we'll see teams trying more innovative strategies in Malaysia, and there may even be circuits where the option tyres are only used for a handful of laps - really shaking up the order.

[Valve Bounce]

I find it all very diffusing :confused:

[Dave B]

PS, the green stripe was next to useless in the twighlight conditions. I hope it's more visible in the daylight of Malaysia.

[Mark]

PS, the green stripe was next to useless in the twighlight conditions. I hope it's more visible in the daylight of Malaysia.

Agreed. Although at times you couldn't tell who was who. The Ferrari looked black at times to me.

[Ranger]

Is it actually possible to do a one-stop race now?

[ArrowsFA1]

Hopefully we'll see teams trying more innovative strategies in Malaysia, and there may even be circuits where the option tyres are only used for a handful of laps - really shaking up the order.
I've seen it suggested that when there's a safety car teams may pit, run one lap on the options, then pit again to get rid of 'em :p

[Mark]

Is it actually possible to do a one-stop race now?

Possible? Yes. Could you acutally do it? Probably not. As it would mean doing most of the race on one set of tyres in order to keep the 'soft' stint as short as possible.

[Mark]

I've seen it suggested that when there's a safety car teams may pit, run one lap on the options, then pit again to get rid of 'em :p

If that does happen there will be a rule change to prevent it! e.g. You must do at least one lap in race conditions.

[jens]

We might start seeing drivers qualifying with relatively light fuel-loads again in Q3, mainly by those, who plan to use the softer tyre during the first stint (they don't seem to last much longer than around 10 laps anyway). Hence the gaps in Q3 may be bigger. In Australia Ferraris and Kubica really didn't seem to take the tyre-factor into account or the tyres wore off quicker than they expected, hence they were forced to pit earlier than they planned.

[N. Jones]

I thought F1 was doing away with the "you must run both sets" rule now that slick tires are back? I remember a F1 journo saying that sometime last year.

[ioan]

We might start seeing drivers qualifying with relatively light fuel-loads again in Q3, mainly by those, who plan to use the softer tyre during the first stint (they don't seem to last much longer than around 10 laps anyway). Hence the gaps in Q3 may be bigger. In Australia Ferraris and Kubica really didn't seem to take the tyre-factor into account or the tyres wore off quicker than they expected, hence they were forced to pit earlier than they planned.

There is no use to run a short first stint because they will find themselves in the middle of the pack after their 1st pit stop and than it's game over.

[emporer_k]

I say give it a couple more races for the teams / bridgestone to sort out their strategies / what tyres get taken to each race before definitive judgement can be made.

[jens]

There is no use to run a short first stint because they will find themselves in the middle of the pack after their 1st pit stop and than it's game over.

Well, there are some pros and cons about this. On circuits, where a safety car appearance during the race has high probability and where also passing opportunities clearly exist (like Montreal), this strategy could turn out to be clearly beneficial and I'm confident some teams are willing to take that gamble - like we also saw at Melbourne.