I think they have free choice but I'm hard pressed to back that up with evidence as I cannot remember an occassion when Q3 has been wet after a dry Q2.

With respect to the tyres, the problem is that if you have tyres which are engineered to degrade in a certain way over a certain timeframe teams will always find a strategy which rewards 'careful' driving. I doubt there a single race on the calender where there wouldn't be something limiting the performance of the cars if it wasn't the tyres - brakes, fuel, gearbox, engines, driver stamina. F1 Grand Prix are endurance races and will always have an essential element of conservation. Maybe in the bad old days of unlimited team budgets cars could be engineered and raced at full pace for 200 miles but not any more and in those days it was less about driver capability than it is now.

One way to have some full-paced racing would be to scrap qualifying and decide the GP grid with a sprint race on the Saturday. Have a random grid with perhaps some seeding i.e. top 10 in DC start in top 10 grid places but in random order. You could either award half championship points for the result or have a seperate Sprint Race championship.

That's what I thought.

No biggie. Just that I was involved in an online race last night where that happened and the game just gave the top ten whichever tyres they used in Q2 and it almost started an online riot (bunch of nerds that we are).

People were citing the rule which says "You start the race on whatever tyres you set your fastest time on" but I thought that only applied to Q3.
After all, a car might set their fastest time on primes, qualify 15th and be free to choose to start on options if they wish.


Very true.

Again, the software they have is so detailed that as long as they can make a guess at each car's lap times (which they can get from quali' times) they can come up with a "sedate" strategy which should allow them to achieve the desired finishing position with minimal battling.

I'm hoping that the introduction of turbo's will resolve this to some extent, for a couple of years at least.
Even so, it's likely the teams will quickly settle into a "routine" for their use.
I mean, once you know that using full boost for 1 lap uses 1l of additional fuel you can work out that if you start in, say, 7th place, you're going to need maybe 12l of fuel in reserve to complete 6 overtakes so they'll all be pacing themselves to meet those fuel needs.

I'm told by DS Support they are meant for non-registered users. If you were already logged in when the text ad links began you may get the ads too. The fix is to log out and log back in again. You can then stay logged in. Worked for me anyway.

Comments by Pirelli (effectively "we were only following orders") reveal what a hollow sham F1 has become. Pirelli were asked to engineer the tyre to replicate Canada 2010. However good that was the whole sport cannot and should not be engineered to be like that every week. The end result is that the race is not a race any more, it's just a lottery of who manages the tyres best. IMHO, pit stops don't make for more exciting racing, and it's got to the point now that any performance edge a team might have is nullified by the need to conserve tyres effectively. Yes pit stops lead to frequent changes in race order, but mostly off the race track. It's rare a pass is made between competing drivers, usually the overtaken car has worn tyres, is conserving fuel or saving the engine for the next race. Even DRS is artificial, true slipstreaming could be achieved, if wings were banned. The rules which penalise drivers for engine and gearbox changes are equally flawed. The idea is to save money, but it ruins the spectacle.

Worst of all qualifying is now completely meaningless (except maybe at Monaco). It's all about tyre conservation for goodness sake. I don't blame the teams for this, the stupid tyre rules and tyre limitations forced them to act this way.

I'd far prefer to see cars that start the race with the possibility of ending it with the same set of tyres if driven well. Then let the machinery and drivers decide the outcome. I'm heartily sick of races being won from the pit lane by tyre and race strategy. When I first started watching F1 pit stops were very rare, and if you did stop it was generally the end of your competitive chances that race. There were no armies of pit crews to be marshalled. Mistakes by people with a wheel nut gun didn't decide the race outcome.

Pit stops aren't exciting or interesting unless they go wrong. Don't force teams to make stops by requiring them to use two sets of tyres. If they want more exciting racing remove the wings, diffusers, and other downforce creating devices.

Unfortunately F1 is a money making making for Bernie Ecclestone, and it's all about superficial TV excitement rather than real motor racing.

Imagine if in the Olympic marathon runners were required to stop and change their running shoes at least once and were given shoes which wore out very quickly if they ran too fast. Yes it might make for closer finishes but it would cease to be an athletic competition.

But we had 7 winners in the first 7 races last year. It doesn't get more exciting that that.

So we're told, at least.

If that's what passes for excitement, why not just go the whole hog and sabotage a bunch of the tyres to ensure they fail prematurely or randomly contaminate the fuel supplies for a couple of the teams before each race?

I mean, that's be "exciting" too, wouldn't it?

Personally, I don't equate randomness to excitement.
The fact that in a year where one or two cars were hugely superior to the rest, we still had 7 winners in 7 races is actually a great demonstration of just how random the situation is at the moment.

And let's not forget, of course, that we've now got cases where the tyres are properly interfering with the cars.
Hamilton's tyre delamination in Bahrain pulled the drive-shaft out of his gearbox which forced Merc' to replace the gearbox and cost him a grid penalty.
That's not just a crappy tyre hampering a car's race pace.
It's a crappy tyre actually interfering with the event.

Same thing has happened to Massa and to di Resta (who's hardly the most exuberant driver on the track) and it's not something that should ever happen.
It, quite simply, demonstrates that the tyres are not fit for purpose.

Lotus have come out yesterday, and said changing the tyres is unfair. They said they have made some developments with the car, which mean they look after the tyres. Changing the compounds part way through the season is unfair.

I think they have a point. The teams were told about the tyre compounds at the start of the season. It was up to them to develop the cars to take care of their tyres. Lotus have somewhat managed it, whilst teams like RB, Mercs, Ferrari, Mclaren havent managed it. It does seem a bit unfair on Lotus if they do the change the compound, as it may negate the advantage they have (through to R&D).

Personally I think someone has messed up, with the tyre compounds, but changing them part way through the season just seems wrong to me. Changing any rules (or something fundamental as the tyres) half way through a season of any sport is not a good idea. At the other tracks we wont see as many pitstops, Barcelona has a very high tyre ware circuit, others circuits wont be as bad.

I have to agree, there seems to be a few teams who are managing and changing the tyres will disadvantage them.

But, there does seem to be an issue with the tyres delaminating, even force India who seem to be good on tyres had an occurrence but this was blamed on debris on track, but I cannot recall seeing tyres delaminate so much in a single season. I think there has been 3 so far

Red Bull are the team shouting the loudest, apparently they cannot use their car to its full potential due to the tyres, which is maybe a good thing for the other teams

Honda has confirmed it's return, supplying mclaren with engines from 2015.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/107442

I agree that it's a bit unfortunate that Lotus has, apparently, made a good job of developing a car that's kind to it's tyres and that advantage might be negated.

If the problem was just that the tyres had a poor lifespan then fair enough.
The teams should just be forced to stick it out for the rest of the season.
As things are, however, the tyres aren't just providing poor grip.
They're actually falling apart prematurely and randomly ruining races for teams which are unfortunate enough to be given tyres which do this.

If the only way to make the tyres fully reliable is to improve their durability then that's just hard luck for Lotus.

And let's not forget that the FIA didn't have any qualms about changing the regulations mid-season when they tried to ban hot-blown diffusers mid-season back in 2011; a change which put McLaren at a huge disadvantage for 3 or 4 races.

This in effect becomes a race handicap system. Red Bull have to drive slower or stop more often. Either way they can't use their competitive design edge. Is that really what you want to see?

It's not just about Red Bull dominance, it's much more about the soul of the sport of motor racing. It's utterly ridiculous when teams don't try to qualify to conserve extra tyres, or where the faster car and driver don't win. Red Bull certainly aren't the only team, or interested party, who are complaining.

I think it's a case of "be careful what you wish for". Pirelli provided exactly what the F1 authorities requested. Bernie seems to be convinced that pit stops are the reason races are exciting. In practice the artificially imposed pit stops due to excessive tyre wear was forgettably dull as a spectacle. It's ridiculous that Pirelli deliberately engineer their tyres to wear out rapidly.

I'd be really happy if the "S" word (strategy) disappeared completely from F1. We've suffered from it ever since the Renault Turbo came on the seen. Now we have what are in effect compulsory pit stops.

But lotus seem to have a competitive edge by designing their cars to cope with the tyres better.

Is it fair on them to change the tyres now

Lotus haven't done any such thing. Even if they had, I don't think it's in the spirit of the sport to force teams to eke out laps at relatively slow speed simply to finish the race. This is not about one teams advantage over another. It's about a system which forces drivers to run off the pace for long periods of a race. The use of deliberately limited tyre life to enforce pit stops is a flawed concept.

Unfortunately they can't drastically change the tyres now anyway as all the cars are designed for use with them as they are. Only minor changes are possible, nothing which would change the mechanical characteristics of the tyres.

Strategy has been a kay part of Grand Prix racing from it's inception, it's certainly not a modern concept.

The fastest driver always wins the race, within the limits set by that particular race. It's just that at the moment the limitations are far more overt and happen to be effecting one team who were previosuly very quick far more than others.

The last time we had this sort of agrument within F1 was when the budget limitations were implemented. It effected a lot of the top teams but one in partuclar was heavily disadvtaged because they spent the most before. Now we just accept the framewrok that the teams work within. Given enough time and a steady state the teams would work out how to use the tyres properly and effectively. RBR's complaints are IMO just sour grapes.

In the old days, they used to swap drivers during a race, to each other a rest. Pit stops took minutes (rather than micro-seconds), the drivers used to have a smoke and a cup of tea while they waited.

Not like it is now. Team strategy has always been there, but the technical strategy that exists now is quite recent. It began with the Renault Turbo, which couldn't compete if it carried enough fuel for the race, but could with a fuel stop or two. Now who wins is largely determined by when a driver stops for a tyre change, whether the team get them released into a free part of the track, how they use the slower tyre of the two on offer, and so on. None of that has anything to do with driver skill or car design, which is what should decide the race, primarily. It's determined by people sitting on the pit wall with computers and telemetry.

It is overt interference now, deliberately done to "engineer" TV excitement. Bernie and Co have decided pit stops are what makes F1 exciting. Fuel stops were deemed to be too risky so they started messing with tyre formulation. Utterly perverse. It's not just affecting one team. Mercedes were far worse affected than Red Bull. This has nothing to do with sour grapes. I don't care which team is advantaged or disadvantaged. It's a matter of principle. In my opinion F1 is no longer motor racing. Why even bother with qualifying with the rules as they are, it's almost meaningless for anywhere except street circuits. The main priority is to get in the top ten then not expend any more tyres. Farcical.

The budget limitation ideas also seem to have backfired. How much does it really save by making engines last several races for example? The true cost from the enthusiasts POV is cars having to be run off the pace to save engine life. Limiting testing has had an adverse effect on car development too, and drivers can only get used to the developments on race weekends. The answer? Use simulators, so the teams are spending more money again. The big teams still have vast budgets and the new teams Bernie was able to attract still aren't close to being competitive. Every time the rule makers try and change things the innovators find ways round the rules. This is usually a good thing, but in the case of the budget reduction rules it becomes self defeating.

The tyre rules are very badly thought out, as is the deliberately short life they are given. Forcing teams to make pit stops is not the best way to make the racing competitive. Any more than Bernie's suggestion of artificial rain was.

Another obscure question....

Anybody know what it takes for a race to be declared a "wet race"?
I think that DRS is disabled while any driver is on wet tyres but I'm not sure if that's the same criteria for actually declaring a race as being "wet".

Just occured to me that it might be possible for a driver to start on prime tyres while everybody else starts on options and then, if their team-mate deliberately fitted a set of inter's and did a few laps on them, the race would be declared "wet", the rule about using both tyres would be rescinded and the driver could fit a 2nd set of primes and complete the race with one stop rather than 2 or 3.

All a bit contrived but I just thought I'd mention it.

I don't know if they have specific criteria, I think they decide it on the fly (I seem to recall a time this season when DRS was enabled while the cars were on inters).

I don't think that strategy works, the race wouldn't be declared wet for all drivers. The one who used the intermediate tyre would be the only one who didn't have to use the option tyre, his teammate would still have to.

I'm pretty sure it's up to the clerk of the course to declare a race a wet race. They also decide when to deploy the SC and when to disable / enable DRS due to yellow flags, the SC etc...

Very interesting practice sessions yesterday. The Mercs' raw pace may work in their favout this time. If they lock out the front row they'll be odds-on for a win no matter how their tyres last. The only threat will be fast-starting Ferrari's behind them. This is one race where the under-cut is not going to really work unless you can find yourself a decent gap to come back out into, which on such a short circuit is very unlikely.

The RBs look terrible which is very unusual for them, especially at Monaco. No tyre-wear to hide behind at this race.

Massa's just made a right mess of his Ferrari in turn 1 and Sutil's done something similar at the top of the hill.

Not good, with only a couple of hours until quali.

Didn't look like Massa's fault, morelike a car problem. Sutil was being a bit over-ambitious on cold tyres!

Grosjean off now! Holy lord session over I reckon red flagged. Wacky races anyone?

They were all making a fuss about his left front but it looked like his right front wobbled before he locked up the left.
Puncture or steering arm?

Grosjean bins his Lotus for the 3rd time this weekend.

*EDIT*
What was RG doing?
Swerved across toward the pit exit and, thus, made the corner tighter for himself by having to go back left before taking the right-hander.

Rain! Oh the carnage!

(Gets Popcorn ready)

Massa doesn't make quali.

Nice to see Caterham make Q2, I guess.
di Resta moaning again.