Flat Tyres

[Flat.tyres]

Poor old Lewis must be sick of failing stones.

First, the one in the European GP which saw his storming start up to near the top of the field wiped out and now this suspected de-lamination robs him of another podium.

OK, the first one wasn't Stones fault but I would be very interested in finding out the reason for the failure on this occassion.

What should have been a points gain is now a points loss because of a suspected control tyre failure.

Oh well, sh*t happens but he has had as much bad luck now as the other top runners so I suppose it's good he's still on the top.

[Flat.tyres]

Actually, I know it isn't funny but you could say that Bridgestone may be "chunking" away his championship.

[Valve Bounce]

Poor old Lewis must be sick of failing stones.

First, the one in the European GP which saw his storming start up to near the top of the field wiped out and now this suspected de-lamination robs him of another podium.

OK, the first one wasn't Stones fault but I would be very interested in finding out the reason for the failure on this occassion.

What should have been a points gain is now a points loss because of a suspected control tyre failure.

Oh well, sh*t happens but he has had as much bad luck now as the other top runners so I suppose it's good he's still on the top.

Are you the culprit? Naming yourself for Lewis's bad fortune?? :p :

[ShiftingGears]

Certainly helped bunch up the championship slightly. And it was sadly the only interesting thing that happened that race.

[Flat.tyres]

Are you the culprit? Naming yourself for Lewis's bad fortune?? :p :

I thought after I changed my name last year from "Isn't the Mercedes Bulletproof" that things would improve :bigcry:

:D

[ioan]

One thing that I've found interesting was the state of the fron tires that went on Alonso's car at the pitstops.
I didn't pay that much attention or simply missed to look closely at what they put on Hamilton's car, but the ones that FA received were not new, rather pretty worn.

Maybe they just used to many tires before the race and had to use the less used ones at that moment with the result being a delaminating tire. It might be an explanation.

As for the team expecting that Bridgestone find an explanation for the failure after all that tire went through for almost a lap after the failure, well they are very optimist people. :D

[Flat.tyres]

One thing that I've found interesting was the state of the fron tires that went on Alonso's car at the pitstops.
I didn't pay that much attention or simply missed to look closely at what they put on Hamilton's car, but the ones that FA received were not new, rather pretty worn.

Maybe they just used to many tires before the race and had to use the less used ones at that moment with the result being a delaminating tire. It might be an explanation.

As for the team expecting that Bridgestone find an explanation for the failure after all that tire went through for almost a lap after the failure, well they are very optimist people. :D

We already know what the cause was. Chunking. Look it up on Google or something so it couldn't possibly have anything to do with excessive wear, quite the opposite? :rolleyes:

[ArrowsFA1]

Bridgestone believes that Lewis Hamilton's tyre failure in the Turkish Grand Prix was caused by delamination due to a phenomenon known as 'chunking', autosport.com can reveal.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/61860

[Flat.tyres]

We already know what the cause was. Chunking. Look it up on Google or something so it couldn't possibly have anything to do with excessive wear, quite the opposite? :rolleyes:

Sorry, I should have put at the beginning that what we don't know is why Chunking caused the tyre to fail in the first place.

If you look at a F1 tyre after a GP, you will see a mottled effect where material has been collected and melted together forming an uneven hotch-potch a bit like what a Chicken Doner looks like on the spit.

During the race, you don't normally have a problem because these marbles are off line and the tyre doesn't tend to absorb them but flicks them off.

Why this build up happened to the McLarens isn't really known but Chunkingnormally leads to understeer and vibration. It can appear similar to the effect of flat spotting and is pretty uncomfortable for the driver.

How the hell he managed to stay competitive in times with this going on is beyond me but why the tyre failed is what we're trying to establish as much as why it happened in the first place.

[Big Ben]

I have no idea what happened but it made me so so so happy. i don´t like this fellow one bit and I'd be glad to see him in a Spyker some day competing against the other monkeys.

[tinchote]

I have no idea what happened but it made me so so so happy. i don´t like this fellow one bit and I'd be glad to see him in a Spyker some day competing against the other monkeys.

Nice example of a constructive fan :rolleyes:

[Bagwan]

Apparently , this "chunking" effect was happening to other drivers as well , but the only catastrophic event happened to Hamilton .

It isn't surprising to me at all , having walked the circuit in Montreal moments after they all were on track . You end up with the damned things all over the bottoms of your shoes .
Marbles are just another reason that overtaking is difficult in F1 . Even on tracks like Malaysia where the racing surface is ample , the risk of going off line towards the end of the race is too much to take .

I would like to see slicks back , as it seems to me that at least some of this issue comes from this grooved tire design they run in F1 . The compounds seem to "smear" across the grooves during the race , showing a slick face to the road anyway , so the idea of limitting the amount of rubber on the road seems a bit moot .
I believe this "smear" to essentially be those marbles , so , if the point is to put the power down , and you compromise the abilty to pass by laying a minefield of marbles offline , then the best you can hope for is a frustrated procession of drivers who can't risk putting on a show .

With one tire supplier , it should be easy to create skins that don't shed so much , and , if it's too large a contact patch , just make them a thinner profile .
Drop this groovy crap . It aint groovy , it's stupid , and destroys good racing .

[Dagman]

One thing that I've found interesting was the state of the fron tires that went on Alonso's car at the pitstops.
I didn't pay that much attention or simply missed to look closely at what they put on Hamilton's car, but the ones that FA received were not new, rather pretty worn.

Maybe they just used to many tires before the race and had to use the less used ones at that moment with the result being a delaminating tire. It might be an explanation.

As for the team expecting that Bridgestone find an explanation for the failure after all that tire went through for almost a lap after the failure, well they are very optimist people. :D

I'm pretty sure that Hamilton's were scrubbed, but I didn't tape it so....

[leopard]

After watching Lewis tyres looked like that, now we wonder to know any similarity how do you look like :)

[wmcot]

I thought Chunking was a rather poor tasting canned Chow Mein dish...Oh, wait, that was "Chun King" ;)

[oily oaf]

Personally I'm of the opinion that young Lewis' failure had nothing to do with tyre degradation and everything to do with failure to concentrate :mad:
As the field went barrelling into turn one, I distinctly heard ITVs Martin Brundle observe that "Lewis is on the hard"
Now I know Hamilton is a young fella with perfectly normal desires and needs and that the grid girls on Sunday were of a particularly high quality but for me this is nothing short of rank unprofessionalism :mad:

[Flat.tyres]

Bagwan

I don't think it's down to the grooves although I may be wrong but the fact that tyres have got so soft, while still maintaining integrity, that marbels are inevitable. Even the slicks would chuck off rubber but not like these.

Where you are right is that a sole tyre manufacturer should take steps to minimise this. Max can bring it in as a immediate safety measure without approval from the teams as a way of slowing cornering speeds.

[leopard]

Shall we make the talk about bringing back Michelin to the race after this accident. This is not the first Schummi experienced the same with the Bridges.

That seems Mich was blamed out of proportion, like what currently happens in motogp that they totally under perform like new born than the bridges and has caused the fail of the 5 titles holder.

[Flat.tyres]

Shall we make the talk about bringing back Michelin to the race after this accident. This is not the first Schummi experienced the same with the Bridges.

That seems Mich was blamed out of proportion, like what currently happens in motogp that they totally under perform like new born than the bridges and has caused the fail of the 5 titles holder.

Oh, I don't think we need to jump over the top about it. For sure, questions need to be reised about how a spec tyre produces so much marbleing and fails in what should be a pretty robust area of the car now. They don't need to be so tight on tollerences and can sacrifice some grip for improved safety and integrity.

As I said, the first failure was understandable as carbon is a killer for any tyre but the fact that these tyres are suffering from chunking is worrying.

[Bagwan]

Bagwan

I don't think it's down to the grooves although I may be wrong but the fact that tyres have got so soft, while still maintaining integrity, that marbels are inevitable. Even the slicks would chuck off rubber but not like these.

Where you are right is that a sole tyre manufacturer should take steps to minimise this. Max can bring it in as a immediate safety measure without approval from the teams as a way of slowing cornering speeds.

Certainly , it is the soft compounds that are at the forefront of this trouble , but grooves don't help at all in the design .
The edges of the grooves roll under the strain of cornering . This is easily seen as they fill the grooves , and we see essentially a slick tire mid-corner .

Make them hard , and make them slick . I don't see marbles on the highway , so we know it can be done .

[wedge]

Doesn't matter if it grooves or slicks, you're always going to get graining and therefore 'chunking'.

Go to any race meeting, venture in the paddock. You'll find used slicks with a huge blob squashed somewhere on the tyre surface. Hell, some teams are quite happy enough to sell them on to the general public!

[Jimmy Magnusson]

Shall we make the talk about bringing back Michelin to the race after this accident. This is not the first Schummi experienced the same with the Bridges.

That seems Mich was blamed out of proportion, like what currently happens in motogp that they totally under perform like new born than the bridges and has caused the fail of the 5 titles holder.

Now that F1 aren't racing on Indy anymore we could have them back!

[rohanweb]

Well I thought there are some makes of tyres for the road cars actually runs number of miles eventhough the tyre's punctured..
and I wonder why its not being implemented in F1... if thats the case then say the circuit is 5miles for an eg.. the driver should manage to bring the car to pits, and its a shame that all the week end work ( and being strong on the track )goes up in the smoke with a puncture ..

[trumperZ06]

Well I thought there are some makes of tyres for the road cars actually runs number of miles eventhough the tyre's punctured..
and I wonder why its not being implemented in F1... if thats the case then say the circuit is 5miles for an eg.. the driver should manage to bring the car to pits, and its a shame that all the week end work ( and being strong on the track )goes up in the smoke with a puncture ..

;) Run-Craps are HEAVY and have very stiff Sidewalls. Even the latest variety are a compromise... the earlier ones were terrible.

They are just O K for driving on the street... not even close to a good race tire !!!

And a good race tire... is NOT EVEN CLOSE to the special racing tires used in the top series... including Formula 1 !!!

[wmcot]

Doesn't matter if it grooves or slicks, you're always going to get graining and therefore 'chunking'.

Go to any race meeting, venture in the paddock. You'll find used slicks with a huge blob squashed somewhere on the tyre surface. Hell, some teams are quite happy enough to sell them on to the general public!

Here's a good example I shot of a slick at the ALMS race in Salt Lake City in 2006. This had only been used in practice!

[Bagwan]

You cats seem to want to dismiss those grooves as not having much influence in this issue , but the technical working group is currently advocating going back to slicks in '09 .
This alone indicates to me that the current grooved design is far from a slick with some grooves .
The engineering of those grooves has been a very expensive proposition , and they are not used in any other series .

Bridgestone could alter the character of the tires to produce one standard item for them all , and make it as hard(ie-very few marbles) as the customer(Bernie) wants .
This is what needs to happen . Give them a tire and tell them they have to work with it .

[Flat.tyres]

You cats seem to want to dismiss those grooves as not having much influence in this issue , but the technical working group is currently advocating going back to slicks in '09 .
This alone indicates to me that the current grooved design is far from a slick with some grooves .
The engineering of those grooves has been a very expensive proposition , and they are not used in any other series .

Bridgestone could alter the character of the tires to produce one standard item for them all , and make it as hard(ie-very few marbles) as the customer(Bernie) wants .
This is what needs to happen . Give them a tire and tell them they have to work with it .

There is NO reason for a grooved tyre in dry conditions. It was a crap rule to solve the wrong problem and wasted millions in development.

Totally agree with you Bagwan.

[tinchote]

There is NO reason for a grooved tyre in dry conditions. It was a crap rule to solve the wrong problem and wasted millions in development.

Totally agree with you Bagwan.

:up: Absolutely (I refer to my signature).

[leopard]

I heard that US stopped importing a brand of tyres from China and withdraw those already in the market because of safety reason and has caused terrible accident. It has character the out layer where the grain was made cannot firmly adhered to the main component of the tyres, slip off when being used.

[wmcot]

I heard that US stopped importing a brand of tyres from China and withdraw those already in the market because of safety reason and has caused terrible accident. It has character the out layer where the grain was made cannot firmly adhered to the main component of the tyres, slip off when being used.

I think the Chinese were making them out of melamine and lead!! ;)