anonymous161 said:
I think the control tire would negate most of the development work done in recent years by either company, especially if the FIA changed the groove pattern/quantity and/or the composition of the tires.
It would if they did the right thing and went back to slicks!
It would give the FIA instant control over rising speeds that have resulted because of the tyre war, and with the rule changes regarding the aero packages, it'd certainly slow the cars down considerably, and maybe tip the balance in favour of mechanical grip, which is EXACTLY what we need to encourage more overtaking.
It'd also save money as well if only one type of tyre (in 1 or 2 compounds) was developed for the duration of the season, because it'd negate the need to test every available compound and the new compounds and designs that come on stream over the duration of a season.
anonymous161 said:
A little off topic, I believe the regulations allow for 5 valves per cylinder in the current engines, yet all of the spec sheets I have seen list the engines as 4 valves per cylinder. Is there a reason why the teams don't use the maximum number of valves allowed? My only guess would be packaging efficiency with the pneumatic valve systems but otherwise I don't know.
As far as I understand, 5 valves per cylinder are inefficient at higher engine speeds, this is due to the amount of dead air and disturbance that adding an extra inlet valve introduces into the combustion chamber of an engine and which is then exacerbated at higher speeds, so they can in certain applications make less power than a 4 valve engine at the same speed. Include the extra weight of the engine and the packaging issues and the result is less desirable.
Ferrari did run a 60 valve V12 (5 valves per cylinder) back in early 1993, only to switch to 48 valves (4 valves per cylinder) later on that season, I'm not sure whether this was to do with fuel consumption, or because engine speeds were increasing etc but they obviously saw some benefit in droping 12 valves.
I assume that the 5 valve limit is there to allow a degree of 'Technical' innovation in the rules.
russed said:
isnt it the case that bridgestone basically spend all of their time with them and develop the tyres for them. (which is slightly unfair).
In fairness they don't have much choice when the only other teams they have is Jordan and Minardi both of whom hardly test at all. The same goes for when they had Sauber last season, those teams just don't have the budgets to test, and because of this of course they'll spend more time testing with Ferrari and thus the tyres will be more geared towards them because that's where Bridgestone will have received a significant amount of their data from.
It's difficult for Bridgestone to approach anywhere near the levels of mileage and data that McLaren, Williams, Renault, BAR-Honda and Toyota generate for Michelin, and that is why Ferrari have refused to sign up to the testing agreement, because they'll be in a position where they'll be significantly disadvantaged because Michelin will have 5 top teams generating their data, one of which test more than Ferrari already and the other 4 only fractionally behind.
The only way to rid F1 of this is to go with a spec tyre or atleast a spec company. I think Goodyear would be a good compromise because they've got extensive F1 experience, they've served all the old guns on the grid so the arguments of favoritism go out of the window, and we get those funky tyres with massive white lettering on the side that not only bare the 'Eagle' legend, but looked ace at speed!
Now, not that this suggestion will really make any difference to the competitiveness, but remember back in the '80's and early '90's the cars were so low, and with Titanium strips under the cars, they used to produce sparks... lots and lots of sparks, they should bring that back. Sparks are cool.
