Thanks for everyone responding. I will not quote every post, but I think my response will address most questions and remarks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chillibowl
question...would the mandate/primary focus for the tire manus be to make the best possible racing tire or to make a tire that best serves the needs of the show?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chillibowl
if the motivation remains the latter, what would that look like with two tire manus...rather would success be measured by whose tires experienced the steepest decline in performance at predetermined intervals?
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That is the nice thing with this approach, it provides an opportunity to see which tyre behaviour provides the best racing. Currently we only have Pirelli. The performance of the Pirelli tyre are determined by the goals set by F1 (controlled drop off being a mayor requirement) and the trade-off Pirelli chose within the financial return realities that were agreed. We don't know if another manufacturer would do a better job within those constrains or if the goals itself should be tweaked because we have nothing to compare.
Now say there was a second manufacturer. One could then see which of the two tyres produces the best racing (as judged by F1). This then put's pressure on the other manufacturer to come up with a better product as well as giving F1 a better picture to see if the goals they set the tyre manufacturer are still the best possible option. Say for instance one manufacturers leans a bit more towards a controlled drop off and the other more towards a tyre that can be raced harder. F1 would then get a better picture what actually provides better racing, the controlled drop off tyre that forces pit stops and greater tyre life off sets or the tyre that can be raced harder and perhaps provide more intense battles on the track. At the moment we just don’t know.
So to summarize one has mainly three variables:
- The tyre goals set by F1
- The trade-off the manufacturer(s) choose between controlled-drop off and tyres that can be raced harder
- The actual quality/performance of the tyre within that frame work.
So I don’t agree a tyre competition would serve no purpose within the current tyre approach. A tyre competition as proposed would allow to be better judge and improve upon the above three factors without the most severe drawbacks of the previous implementation of a tyre competition.
On cost:
- The goal of this proposal is not to cut costs. I think a slight increase in cost would be the result (increased R&D partly offset by a downward price pressure as a result from competition). If the benefits of the proposal would outweigh a certain cost increase this could still be a good idea.
- Cost are set by contract, if the tyre manufacturer wants to go berserk with R&D, they are welcome as long as they supply the required amount of tyres at the agreed price.
- The cost would not double, because the manufacturers don’t have to send tyre engineers to all races and you only have to produce and ship for half the races.
- Cheaper than the way previous tyres competition was organised (you needed to supply and ship more tyres per manufacturers and had to have track side tyre engineers at each event).
- For instance Bridgestone could propose to run the same spec on Super Formula to share cost over multiple championship. Pirelli could probably share with F2.
Another benefit could be that each manufacturer could target the markets that they are most interested in. Each manufacturer would want to supply their home race(s) probably. The other races would be negotiated based on what markets they would like their marketing focus on.
Also it would reintroduce a whole PR story back into F1; the tyre battle! Take the season we’re having now. Completely dominated by Red Bull/Verstappen. A tyre battle would give the press something exiting to write about and give F1 additional publicity.