Originally Posted by Assa2:
“Is the FIA therefore going to stop teams trying out new developments on their current cars during the YDT?
IMO it's pretty clear that the track on Sunday played a significant part in the tyre failures. Although the tyres have failed more often than they should previously this season they've all been delaminations which is a totally different scenario to the deflations we had at Silverstone. It's therefore logical that it was something specific about Silverstone which caused these tyres to fail. Furthermore all but one of the failures occurred during the race (I think there was one similar failure in FP3?) so again it seems logical that a combination of the track and the conditions (significantly warmer than on Friday/Saturday) had an unexpected effect on the tyres. I wonder what pressure the teams were running their tyres on? Given how warm it was and how the teams like to run the tyres at a lower PSI than Pirrelli recommend I wonder if they under-inflated the tyres to compensate for the higher track temperature and got it wrong to such an extent that the left rear tyre wall became susceptable to damage when running over kerbs at specific high speed left hand corners (Farm, Maggots and Chapel).”
“Is the FIA therefore going to stop teams trying out new developments on their current cars during the YDT?
IMO it's pretty clear that the track on Sunday played a significant part in the tyre failures. Although the tyres have failed more often than they should previously this season they've all been delaminations which is a totally different scenario to the deflations we had at Silverstone. It's therefore logical that it was something specific about Silverstone which caused these tyres to fail. Furthermore all but one of the failures occurred during the race (I think there was one similar failure in FP3?) so again it seems logical that a combination of the track and the conditions (significantly warmer than on Friday/Saturday) had an unexpected effect on the tyres. I wonder what pressure the teams were running their tyres on? Given how warm it was and how the teams like to run the tyres at a lower PSI than Pirrelli recommend I wonder if they under-inflated the tyres to compensate for the higher track temperature and got it wrong to such an extent that the left rear tyre wall became susceptable to damage when running over kerbs at specific high speed left hand corners (Farm, Maggots and Chapel).”
The FIA have said the test is purely for Pirelli, so in theory now they wont be able to try new developments. Although I dont think that will stop teams that have parts they want to test. Would adding the parts just for free practice (and not the race) mean the part is no longer a new/development part? Or would they have to run it in the race as well? If they have to run it in the race as well, you can bet only the No.2 car would run the new parts whilst the No.1 driver would not have to. Which isnt good news for the Massa.
Silverstone was the fastest track of the season so far. Which as you say contributed to the problem, as well as the warm weather. Perez had a delamination during free practice. However that was due to him running over debris that caused a puncture.
According to Sky, teams were running around 16-17 PSI, once the problem started some of the teams (although it may have been all of them) increased the pressure to 19 PSI. This was not forced by Pirelli, but was recommended. Obviously teams were not happy about doing this, as it increased the ride height of the car, and it meant they lost some lap times. RB did increase the pressure, as there was a radio message we heard telling Vettel of the increase in tyre pressure.
The Nurbergring isnt as fast as Silverstone, so hopefully we wont have the same problems as we did at Silverstone. It will be interesting to see if the teams decide to increase pressure again, or plan to have an extra pitstop.



