Tyre Contract

There was an article in midweek about Michelin putting in a bid to the the sole F1 tyre provider from 2017:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/33162513

I take it then that the FIA want to stick with sole tyre providers so they can ordain what tyre and the state of wear of it that the tyre company provides. Sorry but that is a bad move. They should be looking to bring in as many tyre providers who wish to be part of F1. Let the teams decide which tyre manufacturer they wish to use and it throws more possibilities in there for teams to gain on the dominant team by having better tyres or better performing for longer and attracts more interest as well.

Instead the FIA seem happy to take F1 along this eternal road to boredom without exploring other avenues.

Brundle talked about this yesterday, said a tyre war would be a bad move for a number of reasons, also goes against cost cutting & said tyres aren't the problem, it's the aero packages.

John wrote:Brundle talked about this yesterday, said a tyre war would be a bad move for a number of reasons, also goes against cost cutting & said tyres aren't the problem, it's the aero packages.

Fair enough I never saw that but how would it go against cost cutting exactly? And I'd say tyres would make a difference. Look at when Bridgestone and Michelin were supplying tyres - one brand had an advantage on certain tracks and the other on other ones so that would help diminish the huge advantage a dominant team has would it not?

Agree with Craig that its a bad move. Preventing competition, whether its between teams or suppliers is never a good thing.

True it would be more expensive, having more than one supplier, with the current tyre regs. However, if they ditched this ludicrous situation with multiple tyre compounds and each company was only required to supply 1 type of slick, plus inters and full wets, it would probably work out cheaper than just having 1 supplier providing multiple compounds.

Disagree with Brundle to an extent and think tyres are part of the problem...the fact they're designed to only last a certain number of laps is part of this whole culture of conservation that is taking away from the racing spectacle.

A "tyre war" would be like any other form of competition in that it would drive innovation...and would likely actually help drive costs down as the manufacturers bid to be the teams' preferred supplier.

The biggest single problem IMO still remains the entire plethora of design regulations (including aero).

Of course aero is a double-edged sword and it needs to be managed so it doesn't have too much of a negative effect on following cars. Again, if the design regs were relaxed, maybe the designers could come up with different wing designs...or something completely new that would provide downforce without creating huge turbulent wakes.

dyrewolfe wrote:Agree with Craig that its a bad move. Preventing competition, whether its between teams or suppliers is never a good thing.

True it would be more expensive, having more than one supplier, with the current tyre regs. However, if they ditched this ludicrous situation with multiple tyre compounds and each company was only required to supply 1 type of slick, plus inters and full wets, it would probably work out cheaper than just having 1 supplier providing multiple compounds.

Disagree with Brundle to an extent and think tyres are part of the problem...the fact they're designed to only last a certain number of laps is part of this whole culture of conservation that is taking away from the racing spectacle.

A "tyre war" would be like any other form of competition in that it would drive innovation...and would likely actually help drive costs down as the manufacturers bid to be the teams' preferred supplier.

The biggest single problem IMO still remains the entire plethora of design regulations (including aero).

Of course aero is a double-edged sword and it needs to be managed so it doesn't have too much of a negative effect on following cars. Again, if the design regs were relaxed, maybe the designers could come up with different wing designs...or something completely new that would provide downforce without creating huge turbulent wakes.

Precisely.

The design specifications and regulations are really far too restrictive and throttles innovative designs of various parts of the car and to have a single tyre manufacturer just ensures that no innovations or competition will be seen in the tyre department. Jeez nowadays F1 is almost like the design specifications almost has the FIA mapping out what the design of the car will look like. Free us of those shackles NOW.