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radical-one

So When Will Pirelli Bring Better Tires ?

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Since when has a 110-dBa engine being run ever been secret?

Secret, my arse.

You'd have to have bricks in your head if you ever thought a F1 team could run a secret test the very next day of a grandprix. Of course, most journo's these days do have bricks in their heads, and the articles they write aren't even worth being used as toilet paper. What has been reported so far is 1% of the story, and the only people that it was "secret" for were aforementioned bricks for brains journo's.

The test was not secret. It wasn't even obfuscated.

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Since when has a 110-dBa engine being run ever been secret?

Secret, my arse.

You'd have to have bricks in your head if you ever thought a F1 team could run a secret test the very next day of a grandprix. Of course, most journo's these days do have bricks in their heads, and the articles they write aren't even worth being used as toilet paper. What has been reported so far is 1% of the story, and the only people that it was "secret" for were aforementioned bricks for brains journo's.

The test was not secret. It wasn't even obfuscated.

I had to go look up what obfuscated mean... so yes, it was'nt obfuscated

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The best solution to solve this Tire fiasco is to bring in another tire manufacturer like Michellin.

Like I said from the start, a Tire WAR is better than Tire WEAR issue....

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The best solution to solve this Tire fiasco is to bring in another tire manufacturer like Michellin.

Like I said from the start, a Tire WAR is better than Tire WEAR issue....

spot on!, I really enjoyed the tyre war between Michelin and bridgestone

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Since when has a 110-dBa engine being run ever been secret?

Secret, my arse.

You'd have to have bricks in your head if you ever thought a F1 team could run a secret test the very next day of a grandprix. Of course, most journo's these days do have bricks in their heads, and the articles they write aren't even worth being used as toilet paper. What has been reported so far is 1% of the story, and the only people that it was "secret" for were aforementioned bricks for brains journo's.

The test was not secret. It wasn't even obfuscated.

Sorry, but I don't see what is your point. From all that has been said it is obvious that the teams did not know about it, which makes it secret. Now, unless there's a global conspiracy of epic propportions in which "they" doesn't want to know the truth (because we can't handle the truth!) that explains the other 99% that you claim the journos didn't tell us, I think that the simplest explanation is "Yes, they did a secret test. No, other than being a suspicious attitude, being secret is not the core of the whole story"

I've been following with great interest t he whole saga, fascinated by the amount of crap journos can write (I give you that, Craig!) but also about the implications of the case in the different scenarios. My thoughts are:

1) Whatever way you want to spin it, there's a test in which Merc, with Merc race drivers, used this year's car which is expressly prohibited by the regulations. Secrecy, benefits or not,"b-b-but Ferrari did X! And RBR did Z!" are all either minor points or moo points. What is under scrutiny is whether or not the "illegal" test can be made "legal" again by means of interpretation.

2) Such interpretation rests in stuff like "a Pirelli test can be considered a team's test?" If somebody at FIA actually gave his authorization, is that enough to make the test legal?

3) As for the secrecy (which I already explained is a minor point) you are right, it is hard to hide 2 cars and tons of personnel working around the circuit of Barcelona without anybody finding out. Yet, somehow it happened, and the fact that it was not publicly announced, that the drivers wore anonymous helmets, the fact that security measures were rather strict around the place, the fact that the access were restricted and signs covered tend to point that even if secrecy was impossible, Pirelli and Merc tried damned hard.

4) Now, unless there is some hidden Deus Ex-Machina to save the day for Merc/Pirelli, I can't see how they can get out of this. Again, this is my very very personal opinion. There are lots of more informed opinions and many lawyers wannabes around the net (a satanic legion which have just added George to their numbers!) with their expalantions, but this is my out-of-my-arse bonafide version:

a) The only possible way would be for FIA to determine that the test was not made by a competitor. That would be like a lazy "oh, well...let's not get all worked up over this please!" I mean it CAN be interpreted that way, it was a Pirelli test after all, but by using a current car and current drivers, the breach of the regulations is too obvious to be hidden by such a claim.

B) The FIA authorization seems to be Mercs defense. Personally, I doubt it is an actual defense, more of a mild blackmailing scheme in the sense of "if we fall, you fall with us!". The problem being that the IT is a very different procedure from the old days of Herr Mosley when things could be more flexible. I'm not sure the IT would care too much if a guilty veredict means the downfall of Whitting, for example. As for the logic of the claim itself (I guess the claim is that they did it in good faith) It is rather weak. Let me put it this way: let's assume you are Mr.Mercedes Benz. Mr.Pirelli comes and tells you: "Hey, Signore Mercedes, want-a test-a your car, bambino?"". You KNOW that 2013 cars are not allowed, making room for enough doubtt as to call Mr.Whitting or whoever Merc contacted. Now, apparently, they asked by email and nobody replied so they took that as a green light, which sounds rather sloppy so let's assume that somebody did reply (let's assume it was CW) and they gave Merc green light. It is easy (even for me) to understand from the rules that 2013 cars cannot be usable and any exception to that should be handled by the FIA and equity should be kept and blah blah. Now, again, you are Mr.Mercedes, soo you have a deep understanding of the rules. Do you really, honestly think that something so against fair play as having 1000km test with current cars with current drivers can be authorized by a mere call from CW? Thing with lesser impact than that usually need the FIA and the UNANIMOUS approval of the teams, don't you think it deserved more study?

In any case, I think that it was a dumbass move from Merc/Pirelli, either with knowledge of some dumbass at FIA or not.And the extent of knowledge the FIA had of this test is another thing (were they told all the details or merely asked "hey, can we test some tires?"). Also, in any case, the FIA is at least guilty of lousy controls as they had no clear idea of this test and apparently not even a clue about Ferrari's

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Sorry, but I don't see what is your point. From all that has been said it is obvious that the teams did not know about it, which makes it secret. Now, unless there's a global conspiracy of epic propportions in which "they" doesn't want to know the truth (because we can't handle the truth!) that explains the other 99% that you claim the journos didn't tell us, I think that the simplest explanation is "Yes, they did a secret test. No, other than being a suspicious attitude, being secret is not the core of the whole story"

I've been following with great interest t he whole saga, fascinated by the amount of crap journos can write (I give you that, Craig!) but also about the implications of the case in the different scenarios. My thoughts are:

1) Whatever way you want to spin it, there's a test in which Merc, with Merc race drivers, used this year's car which is expressly prohibited by the regulations. Secrecy, benefits or not,"b-b-but Ferrari did X! And RBR did Z!" are all either minor points or moo points. What is under scrutiny is whether or not the "illegal" test can be made "legal" again by means of interpretation.

2) Such interpretation rests in stuff like "a Pirelli test can be considered a team's test?" If somebody at FIA actually gave his authorization, is that enough to make the test legal?

3) As for the secrecy (which I already explained is a minor point) you are right, it is hard to hide 2 cars and tons of personnel working around the circuit of Barcelona without anybody finding out. Yet, somehow it happened, and the fact that it was not publicly announced, that the drivers wore anonymous helmets, the fact that security measures were rather strict around the place, the fact that the access were restricted and signs covered tend to point that even if secrecy was impossible, Pirelli and Merc tried damned hard.

4) Now, unless there is some hidden Deus Ex-Machina to save the day for Merc/Pirelli, I can't see how they can get out of this. Again, this is my very very personal opinion. There are lots of more informed opinions and many lawyers wannabes around the net (a satanic legion which have just added George to their numbers!) with their expalantions, but this is my out-of-my-arse bonafide version:

a) The only possible way would be for FIA to determine that the test was not made by a competitor. That would be like a lazy "oh, well...let's not get all worked up over this please!" I mean it CAN be interpreted that way, it was a Pirelli test after all, but by using a current car and current drivers, the breach of the regulations is too obvious to be hidden by such a claim.

cool.png The FIA authorization seems to be Mercs defense. Personally, I doubt it is an actual defense, more of a mild blackmailing scheme in the sense of "if we fall, you fall with us!". The problem being that the IT is a very different procedure from the old days of Herr Mosley when things could be more flexible. I'm not sure the IT would care too much if a guilty veredict means the downfall of Whitting, for example. As for the logic of the claim itself (I guess the claim is that they did it in good faith) It is rather weak. Let me put it this way: let's assume you are Mr.Mercedes Benz. Mr.Pirelli comes and tells you: "Hey, Signore Mercedes, want-a test-a your car, bambino?"". You KNOW that 2013 cars are not allowed, making room for enough doubtt as to call Mr.Whitting or whoever Merc contacted. Now, apparently, they asked by email and nobody replied so they took that as a green light, which sounds rather sloppy so let's assume that somebody did reply (let's assume it was CW) and they gave Merc green light. It is easy (even for me) to understand from the rules that 2013 cars cannot be usable and any exception to that should be handled by the FIA and equity should be kept and blah blah. Now, again, you are Mr.Mercedes, soo you have a deep understanding of the rules. Do you really, honestly think that something so against fair play as having 1000km test with current cars with current drivers can be authorized by a mere call from CW? Thing with lesser impact than that usually need the FIA and the UNANIMOUS approval of the teams, don't you think it deserved more study?

In any case, I think that it was a dumbass move from Merc/Pirelli, either with knowledge of some dumbass at FIA or not.And the extent of knowledge the FIA had of this test is another thing (were they told all the details or merely asked "hey, can we test some tires?"). Also, in any case, the FIA is at least guilty of lousy controls as they had no clear idea of this test and apparently not even a clue about Ferrari's

This post is quite long, I stopped midway

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An interesting couple of facts came out on BBC coverage:

- Pirelli said they asked all the teams to take part in testing tyres earlier this year and none offered to do it (citing cost of doing so as the issue)

- Red Bull admitted they were asked, but said they refused because of the rules

This does raise an interesting point in that the rules work against the necessary work to develop tyres. This can't be helpful?

There are rumours 4 testing sessions will return over the course of 2014.

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Tires sure were bad today. Man, 57 laps on the medium, bwoooof, bring back Bridgestone.

(Okay, fine, that's totally unfair to pick an extreme, but both compounds seemed fine. Nothing radical happened. Two-stopper. Barcelona caused a panic, but Barcelona, just like 57 laps on the medium, was an extreme).

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Sorry, but I don't see what is your point. From all that has been said it is obvious that the teams did not know about it, which makes it secret. Now, unless there's a global conspiracy of epic propportions in which "they" doesn't want to know the truth (because we can't handle the truth!) that

blah

blah

important blah

bald man blah

blah

thats interesting blah

blahdy dah dah

(Just paraphrasing the above :P )

Young Mike explains it much better than I ever could:

http://pitpass.com/49168-Secret

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:lol: I'm glad you paraphrased it, otherwise it would be another wall of text just for the quote!

As for the article, uh, I don't know how where to begin there are so many things wrong with it. It's an ok piece of oratory, for a forum troll post. As an article it's rubbish. It's subjective, filled with snide comments and gross generalizations, contradictory and overall, didn't help the Merc cause that much.

First, no matter whether people SHOULD have noticed it or not. That's something for each team to debate with their "spies" (I bet every team has people in charge of keeping an eye on other teams). The truth is that either nobody noticed (and nobody cares if the Mayor of Montmeló heard the engines, those who should have heard it didn't), or the guys that noticed it were astute enough to act as if they didn't, thus turning the frankly questionable test by Merc against them.

Now, teams can easily have missed the fact that Merc stayed behind. I mean, some team must be the last one to leave, right? It's not as if all the teams would get stuck at the exit saying "after you. no, no, you go first. oh no, please, you first!".

Journalists? That's more unusual. Unlike teams, many F1 journalists are freelance so they could have as well stayed around and notice something, not to mention the local journalists as well. But then again, NOOBODY mentioned the test. Now, you can be paranoid enough to imagine some cosmic conspiracy between all the teams, or the teams plus FIA, but also including all the journalists?

So, in the simplest of definitions the test was "secret". But, as this Mike Lawrence seems to be so worked up about the idiocy of the whole world except himself, let's give him some credit and assume that the test was not secret. What's the friggin' difference? Either they breached the rules or they didn't.

Now, my dear Mike Lawrence, just think about this: a good excercise is always to follow the reasoning to the end and not just bask in your own brilliance when you find an objection. So let's assume that Merc/Pirelli never wanted it to be secret. Then...why use anonymous helmets? Why such high security as reported by the only journalist around? Why Lewis made comments about his travel to Orlando but no mention about his test where he was at that exact moment? (And no, I don't think his tweets about Orlando were intentionally misleading, I don't think he wanted people to believe he was still in Orlando but the silence about the test is still significative). For a test that is so "obviously" not-secret, they tried hard. That's not "privacy". Privacy is trying to avoid the attention of the public. That's secrecy, as they also evaded the attention of the other teams and the FIA.

Is that evidence of wrongdoing? No, just indiciary. It can or cannot mean some wrongdoing. See the Ferrari test for a contrast. It was secret, but not irregular. Because it was secret, it called for further investigation by FIA.

And, finally (Brad will so gonna kill me for yet another wall of text!) the argument that nobody can make any judgement before the FIA does is as stupid as it gets. For further proof, on his very next paragraph he sentences that Niki Lauda and Toto Wolff would never break the rules. Talk about being inconsistent.

Sorry, Craig, but as woth noting as some points could be, it was a sorry piece of partisan literature.

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I have to say that article makes such an obvious but completely irrelevant point. First of all, as stressed: it's not worth quibbling over the word secret too much as it does not actually make any difference to whether it is legal or not.

Now let's quibble:

Secrecy is a matter of knowing something or not knowing it. The other teams apparently didn't know about it, otherwise logic dictates they would have stopped it happening in the first instance or protested sooner than Monaco, and that is the only thing that is relevant when people talk about it being "secret". Of course nobody is stupid enough to actually believe you could run a test without anybody finding out (presumably not even Mercedes and Pirelli, funnily enough), you cannot make cars silent and invisible, etc.

As a subsidiary point, I don't actually see anything too irresponsible in journalists describing it as a secret test. Yes, obviously people close to the circuit would know about it as it's happening. But the other teams did not know, or at least they did not know in advance. Surely if you are discussing the "secrecy" of a test, especially a potentially illegal one, secrecy relates to whether the other teams and/or the governing body knew about it. Not some guy who lives near Barcelona circuit. I don't think this is an unfair point.

In short, I would expect most people who read about a "secret" F1 test to understand that secrecy is something that relates to other teams/FIA not being informed about it in advance, rather than a breaking of the laws of physics (which would surely be bigger news, anyway). As much as I hate journalists (almost as bad as lawyers) I can't fault them too much on this one. Readers are not that dumb.

Edit: Oh, Andres beat me because the forum was having issues. Story of my life :(

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Oh, so now that I wrote a gazillion rambling words, fearing all the time that Brad migh go Kimi on me and punch me in the face you show up and make the same point as I do, only in a clearer, more concise way?

I hate you, George, Attorney at Law!

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Oh, so now that I wrote a gazillion rambling words, fearing all the time that Brad migh go Kimi on me and punch me in the face you show up and make the same point as I do, only in a clearer, more concise way?

I hate you, George, Attorney at Law!

This time I stopped at like...halfway with your post.... but do feel encouraged.... With George I made it to the first paragraph...nasty little habit I have there, short attention span an all

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Tyres can't be changed soon enough, I don't buy this rhetoric that the complainers are the ones who aren't winning... just look at the Drivers/Constructors tables.

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Tyres can't be changed soon enough, I don't buy this rhetoric that the complainers are the ones who aren't winning... just look at the Drivers/Constructors tables.

Sooner the better or before Pirelli gets booted out. Better for racing overall.

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What do you guys want, exactly? I ask not in an argumentative way, but in one of genuine confusion. It seemed to me that tires have been such a non-story in the last two races, yet there's still dissatisfaction, and no credit being given to Pirelli for enable a two-stop or even one-stop race in Montréal of all places with a super soft tire. I don't get it. How do you guys want the races to play out? How many stops? How many different strategies? What's the WDC/WCC table supposed to look like?

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Don't ask me ask the Red bull guys eyebrow.gif

Pirelli hits out at Red Bull criticism after F1 Canadian GP

By Jonathan Noble Tuesday, June 11th 2013, 10:35 GMT

Pirelli has hit out at Red Bull for again criticising its tyres on the back of a dominant performance from Sebastian Vettel in the Canadian Grand Prix.

Vettel took a lights-to-flag victory in Montreal as low tyre degradation meant he could push harder and unleash the full potential of his RB9.

However, after celebrating a win that extended his championship lead over Fernando Alonso to 36 points, Vettel was still critical of Pirelli's tyres, suggesting that he has concerns about their safety.

Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery has told AUTOSPORT that he cannot comprehend why Vettel keeps criticising the tyres.

When asked if the stunning pace of Red Bull showed how far ahead the team is when tyre degradation is not so high, Hembery said: "I think it is a little signal, but even before Canada they were leading the championship.

"They have been strong, but some of the comments are very difficult to understand when you look at the performance.

"Maybe some other teams might have a reason, but you are leading the championship, and still complaining?

"You win the race and I have seen some complaints again here [in Canada], and those sorts of things are not helpful."

Red Bull has been the strongest criticof the aggressive tyre choices made by Pirelli this season, and it made a concerted push to get F1's official tyre supplier to move the tyres back towards a specification based on last year's rubber.

Those efforts have been thwarted by the lack of agreement from the team's rivals about such a move, but Red Bull is still questioning the safety of the tyres due to delaminations that have been encountered in the early stages of the campaign.

After his victory in Montreal, Vettel again said that his main focus was the safety aspect.

"The criticism we had or I expressed was not based on performance. I think it was based on safety," he said.

Pirelli has always insisted that there are no safety issues with the delaminations because the tyres stay inflated.

However it does want to eradicate the incidents because they do not project a positive image for its products.

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The tires stay the same.

http://gptoday.com/f...s_tyre_changes/

Yes I heard.

Oh well, I guess it's gonna take until next season before we can expect to see Real Revamp on Pirelli or even another tire manufacturer joining (wishful).

until then, watch your tires guys, avoid them brake locking at all cost yikes.gif

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Pirelli may be out soon. Bring in Michellin !

F1: Pirelli Out in 2014?

by The F1 Poet on June 24, 2013

pirelli_gbottom-of-things.jpg?w=497It would appear on the surface that Pirelli will not be in Formula one in 2014.

I understand that Pirelli currently has an agreement in principle with many (but not all) of the F1 teams as well as with Formula One itself. It does not however, have any agreement with the FIA as of yet. In order for Pirelli to participate in F1 in F1 in 2014, it requires contracts with all three groups. I also understand from my brief discussions with both Paul Hembery and Mario Isola that a long-term agreement would be ideal.

It’s getting a little late in the game for Pirelli to be in the dark about its future commitments to the sport. Should the Italian tyre supplier assume that the contracts will be signed and therefore start investing time and money in R&D into the 2014 spec. tyre?

All indications have been, (up until now) that Pirelli would welcome a contract extension. Although one might argue (or perhaps wonder) whether Pirelli would even want to continue in the sport after recent events.

The official tyre supplier has been subject to abusive comments by fans and drivers over its high degradation rate. One complaint is that drivers are unable to push to the limit and are forced to manage their tyres. Although these complaints should really be taken up with the FIA. It was they who requested this “higher attrition” type tyre when Pirelli entered the sport. Pirelli have been providing exactly what has been asked of them.

Recently, the FIA dragged Pirelli into the International Tribunal and then reprimanded them, charging them with a third of the cost of Tribunal (the other two thirds to be covered by Mercedes AMG Petronas and the FIA). It seems a bit steep to some considering Pirelli aren’t governed by the same rules as an F1 competitor and therefore should probably not have been “invited” to participate in the Tribunal to begin with (arguably).

There are those who believe that Mercedes should have been aware of the rules and regulations that them may have been in danger of breaching. I digress; we shouldn’t get into the whole “TestGate” saga again.

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Something is really off with how Pirelli have been treated. The fact they have not got a contract extension and have publicly been mentioning this since the beginning of the year means they will most likely get dumped. What a hachet job on them. They were asked to make a tyre that degrades and makes the whole specticle of F1 better. In that regard they succeeded. But now they have been turned on and relentlessly attacked for making a bad product.

Good if Michellin come into the fray, but I would say it might also be possible the "degrading" tyres will be dumped too. Back to the one stop boring races we had from years past. No refuelling, no passing, and super softs that last an entire race weekend. Oh joy.

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Something is really off with how Pirelli have been treated. The fact they have not got a contract extension and have publicly been mentioning this since the beginning of the year means they will most likely get dumped. What a hachet job on them. They were asked to make a tyre that degrades and makes the whole specticle of F1 better. In that regard they succeeded. But now they have been turned on and relentlessly attacked for making a bad product.

Good if Michellin come into the fray, but I would say it might also be possible the "degrading" tyres will be dumped too. Back to the one stop boring races we had from years past. No refuelling, no passing, and super softs that last an entire race weekend. Oh joy.

I'm still hoping for tire wars. I believe it can create more excitement. It's the same as different engine suppliers as it is now.

Michellin vs Bridgestone before was not that bad.

Besides, if there will be other tire supplier, we will see how Pirelli will measure against them. Maybe Pirelli is even superior after all , and that's what I want to see happening - Tire competition fisticufs.gifranting.gif

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