planetf1.com

Wasnt this the oil burn issue enforced last year already (sometime after the winter break)?. I remember merc brought out there last engine just before the rule could take effect while ferrari still did not use the 4th PU that needed to comply.
And should they not be catching the oil rather than releasing it to atmosphere

Good points.

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The new regulation for this year stipulates the breather pipe needs to exit the rear of the car by the monkey-seat area. There is speculation that this was being used by most teams in years past to recirculate the oil that is now exiting the breather pipes back into the combustion process.

It just seems that maybe Mercedes and to an extent Renault (as they were late to the oil burning), have got it figured more than Ferrari.

As to them chucking out oil residue onto track, its very much a problem I would imagine. Imagine following a Ferrari down a straight and getting your visor covered in residue

No I believe this is a new rule that's been brought out that prevents the breather pipe from the engine to be routed into the airbox were the waste gases that build up in the engine are then burnt within the engine, this I believe is normal practice in road car engines and is done in part to stop these harmful gases to be vented into the atmosphere.

However I guess that this system has been used as a way of carrying the oil into the combustion system of the engines so to prevent this the FIA has decreed that the breather pipes have to be vented into the atmosphere which I'm guessing is not exactly healthy though?

In regards to Ferrari I would be guessing that they found some of their performance gains through this system and maybe the rule change came after the new engine was designed, so now we see the engine spewing out oil and rumours of the engine struggling with fuel efficiency.

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What are you guys making of the reports that the Mercedes is insanely tough on the tires, even the harder compounds?

It certainly looks like it might be a chink in their armour something that perhaps they might have to manage in the races?

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Given that they have among the most agressive tyre selection for Melbourne, I think they're feeling confident enough:



Source: http://www.f1network.net/main/s107/st196636.htm

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The only thing I've seen mentioned was that they had some blistering on the softer tyre runs. The medium runs were really consistent with long stints and very little time drop off?
They've gone pretty aggressively towards the Ultra-soft for Melbourne which doesn't suggest they themselves believe they have a problem.

When were the tyres chosen, before or after winter testing?

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Can't say for sure but i'd imagine after they'd been allowed to test. The compounds are different so it would be bizarre to expect them to choose having never run them on the cars.

I'm shocked Hamilton only chose to bring a single set of softs. That has been his tire of choice these last 4 years.

I would imagine it was b/c he was cought out by vettel last year and doesnt want a repeat of that.

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Tires for non-European races are chosen 14 weeks before the race, so way before testing. They didn't have a clue at that time.

Edit: Well, they did the Abu Dhabi tire test obviously, don't know how final the compounds were there though.

So they are a bit in the dark?

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If I understand the info correctly, yes. What's also weird is that Mercedes didn't even test the softer tires and already had problems with the mediums. Maybe it's all a storm in a tea cup or even a red herring, but I found it interesting nonetheless.

Remember the tyre compounds have all gone a step softer this year. Last year's 'soft' is now the 'medium'.

I heard them having problems with the softs but not the mediums, it's the medium tyre running that basically has seen everyone saying that Mercedes are the favourites.

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That actually makes even less sense for Hamilton his race tyres are 2 steps softer than the softs of last year.

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Where is this talk of Mercedes being harder on the softer compounds from? On the last development diary with Sky - they reported that it was kind to its tyres and far easier to set up to get the tyres working.

They also had minimal deg on there long runs.

Some Bottas quotes I believe and some pics of his SS looking a bit of a mess. They did look great on the mediums though yeah.

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"The biggest challenge we faced today was to get the tyres working properly on this new track surface,” Hamilton agreed. “The medium tyre was difficult to get working; the soft tyre is better for warm-up, but suffered with degradation. We are learning all the time.

“It's been a good day. We've got through everything we needed and put good mileage on the car - it's been productive.”




Can't find the Bottas ones from later in the week, they were maybe to his home press I'm not sure but those are Lewis's from here...

https://www.crash.net/f1/news/891002/1/ ... s-mercedes

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Thankyou

Vettel feels rival teams are using blistering as a way to influence Pirelli to get tyres to races that might suit them:
https://www.racefans.net/2018/03/13/tyre-blisters-shows-f1-teams-are-trying-to-influence-pirelli-vettel/


Source - http://www.imgur.com

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I think there are far too many tyre compounds. It's gotten ridiculous.

There should be:
Wet
Intermediate
Hard
Soft

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I'd add medium so that there are 3 compounds per race but I agree if they're going to only bring 3 compounds to each weekend why not just change the compound itself but keep the names hard-medium-soft for the sake of simplicity.

We're going to have hypersoft, ultrasoft and supersoft as the 3 compounds for a race this year, does that not strike anyone else as being a bit silly and tacky? Not to mention completely nonsensical, with S-M-H even someone with no previous knowledge of the sport can tell the difference between the tyres just from the name and therefore which will be faster. How is anyone supposed to know what order SS-HS-US are without already knowing it?

This is exactly what I mentioned in the PF1 Whatsapp chat group. They can make as many compounds as they want in function of the track (or restrict it to the ones they have now, to get the teams familiar with them), choose 3 compunds that make sense for the track they're going to and label them hard, medium soft.

For the casual viewer, this makes sense.
For the viewer that wants to know more, they can always give more information about which compounds are brought exactly.

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I disagree. Think it is great that they have more flexibility to bring appropriate tyres to each race track. Circuits like Russia were a joke and need much softer tyres than many other races. Does it really matter what they call them? The casual viewer won't be too fussed, and those who are interested will still only see 3 compounds on any given weekend.

That's not what Mds is saying. You still have all the compounds you have now, or even many more if you like, but whichever three you take to any race weekend are always called the soft, medium and hard. So the "hard" taken to Monaco will be a lot softer than the "hard" taken to Silverstone.

Yes, exactly this.

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All the doom and gloom about a Mercedes walkover might be a bit premature. Apparently the tire-compound correction assumptions are a bit off the mark. The idea that there are bigger gaps in performance between the tires is not panning out. Toto Wolf said the following:

"What we have seen is that the steps in performance and in grip between the tyre compounds was relatively small," he said.

"Between medium and soft, soft and supersoft, supersoft and ultrasoft you could see tiny steps, between a tenth or two, sometimes no step at all.

"With some teams, like Williams, there was no step at all."

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13484 ... re-in-test

I hope so and I did hear Ted give smaller tyre deltas to the ones we got at the end of the test.

I'm just preparing myself for the worst and that way I can't be disappointed, I think all of us doom and gloom bunch are

Okay, so assuming that's true - and estimating the gap as a consistent 2/10 between each compound before Hypersoft, plus double for the Hyper - here is what we'd get:

MED 0.0 | SOFT -0.2 | SS -0.4 | US -0.6 | HS - 1.0

1. Ferrari - 1:17.182 (Hypersoft) = 1:17.182 (Corrected)
2. Red Bull - 1:18.327 (Supersoft) = 1:17.727 (Corrected)
3. Haas - 1:18.360 (Supersoft) = 1:17.760 (Corrected)
4. McLaren - 1:17.784 (Hypersoft) = 1:17.784 (Corrected)
5. Mercedes - 1:18.825 (Medium) = 1:17.825 (Corrected)
6. Toro Rosso - 1:18.363 (Hypersoft) = 1:18.363 (Corrected)
7. Williams - 1:19.189 (Soft) = 1:18.389 (Corrected)
8. Force India - 1:18.967 (Hypersoft) = 1:18.967 (Corrected)
9. Renault - 1:20.042 (Medium) = 1:19.042 (Corrected)
10. Sauber - 1:19.118 (Hypersoft) = 1:19.118 (Corrected)

Those numbers are just about as dubious as the original corrections, predicting Mercedes as 5th fastest and Ferrari 6 tenths clear of the field.

The other possibility is that no-one pushed flat out except for Haas and maybe Ferrari.

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Ferrari dominating would be even worse than Mercedes dominating - since we would not even get a fight between teammates ....

I think Ferrari dominating would be the second worst thing that could happen this year.

Either way we aren't getting a fight between teammates based in what we've seen of Bottas/Kimi so far but at least with Ferrari it would be a change in who is dominating, a miniscule improvement sure, but still one IMO. Also I can't quite separate myself from the romantic element in Ferrari winning a title after not doing so for a decade and coming so close on so many occasions.

Appreciate that, but as I went on to say, would still prefer to see right away exactly what compounds teams are on, and really don't see it causing any concern or confusion for the casual viewer, or why others would want it dumbed down.

This doesn’t explain the disparity in long run pace though, which is what spawned all the doom and gloom articles not the low fuel runs. Almost everyone has ignored those.

Fair enough, but why are we assuming they were flat-out on the long runs either? They could easily have been holding something in reserve, and it seems pretty likely that some teams did. The race sims that teams do in FP2 aren't perfect predictors for their race pace the very same weekend, so I don't think there's any reason to take it as gospel in pre-season testing.

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I figured an average of these two 'corrections' might give a more accurate picture [assuming neither Pirelli nor Mercedes called the time difference right - Pirelli to exaggerate the versatility of their tyre development, Mercedes possibly as mind games for the opposition given how they performed on harder tyres] but mainly just out of mild interest.

This is the result I came up with:

1 - Mercedes - 1:17.025
2 - Ferrari - 1:17.182
3 - Red Bull - 1:17.327
4 - Haas - 1:17.360
5 - McLaren - 1:17.784
6 - Williams - 1:17.889
7 - Renault - 1:18.242
8 - Toro Rosso - 1:18.363
9 - Force India - 1:18.967
10 - Sauber - 1:19.118

Haas and Force India seem out of place but it's not like huge performance swings have never happened before.

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An interesting quote from Bottas, on the subject of the Hypersoft tyre (full article on Autosport):


So if Bottas (who presumably is privy to Mercedes' tyre data) says that the Hypersoft will only last one lap, either a) Mercedes has terrible soft tyre management, or b) the Hypersoft runners were definitely not pushing, since many of those times were set on runs with multiple flying laps of similar speed.

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