What happened on Sunday show's how stupid FIA no in season testing rule is.

Cars and tyres are built and designed by engineers, any engineer will tell that you test things before you use them and that as you develop something you re-test and that testing needs to be done in representative conditions, i.e. 2013 cars.

FIA and Bernie should stop meddling and let the engineers and drivers get on with their jobs without interference from FIA and Bernie who in reality know very little about F1 engineering or driving!

I got the impression they were doing things to save the teams some money.

With FIA also taking so many millions out, the recession is making it tough for the teams.

Press release from the GPDA.

Cannot remember when the drivers have issued a press release, especially threatening to withdraw from races if things don't improve.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/23190671

Garry Anderson on BBC saying that he thinks the Mercs will get a days testing on new tyres, due to safety concerns.

1 out of the 3 days sound reasonable,

Will they go though on that threat though, with World Championship points at stake?

Presumably all computer data to be given to the FIA to make sure they don't profit from the opportunity to try different setups, configurations etc

Imagine during the race on Sunday, Vettel, alonso and Lewis Hamilton are leading GP, Massa has a blowout,

Cannot imagine anyone pulling into the pits, can anyone ?

I cannot see another USA GP

http://www.motorsportretro.com/2010/...montjuic-park/
Similar claims about 'not racing' made back in the day, a LONG time ago now, but still a moot point. Probably worse as the circuit safety was inadequate, rather than just the tyres. Emerson Fittipaldi had the cojones to actually not race but he was virtually alone...

Alright lads and ladies, Sky F1 - related TV question here. DMN would be ideal to answer this, but anyone else who knows would be a gentleman for answering:

Is Sky Sports F1 now just part of the Sky Sports pack on Sky HD?

If so, is that for everyone or just new customers and existing HD customers continue to receive F1 HD as part of their package?

Much obliged, thank you x

As an ex racing driver, would-be F1 driver and former F1 team owner, I'm sure he has a fair idea of what goes on.

Brabham from 1972 to... 1987 [?] as I recall... Had Gordon Murray, probably the best designer of his generation for most of that time... Ah, memories...

Been reading that Kimi and Lewis(not sure on Lewis as I am sure he joined a few years ago ) are still not members of the GPDA, they could rack up some points this weekend

If you had SSF1HD before the 'Entertainment Extra' package, you can keep it as part of your HD subscription.

If you remove it or are a new customer, the only way to get SSF1/HD is by subscribing to the Sky Sports pack.

http://www.espn.co.uk/germany/motors...ry/114667.html

"Ahead of FP1 at the Nurburgring, the FIA issued a note to the teams which said it must satisfy technical delegate Charlie Whiting that their cars comply with a set of conditions. The conditions include minimum starting pressures and stabilised running pressures, maximum cambers and a banning of swapping tyres from side-to-side."

More work for the scrutineers then... Pirelli vindicated or prevaricating?

Backtracking more like.

Sounds like "spin" of the highest order.

As I said before, I'm sure teams are already bound by the rules to ensure they're running their tyres within the supplier's spec's.
I'd say this is the FIA making an empty gesture as a means of deflecting criticism from their tyre supplier.

Or possibly not within the suppliers' spec going by the article and I quote:
"On Thursday Lewis Hamilton said he had 'been swapping tyres since I started Formula One, so it's been done for many years', but the practice has now been banned by the FIA."

More fallout to come from this 'terror tyres' story methinks

Hope its not true. There is no reason why Merc need to take part in the test. The safety concern is rubbish. Pirelli will have enough data from the other teams, and the data from the Merc tests already conducted. I am not sure what additional data Pirelli can learn by having Merc test again.

If the 1000km worth of testing isnt enough for Pirelli, then we really do need a another tyre supplier.

The tyre-swapping thing is a slightly different situation IMO.

That's a classic case of F1 loophole-finding. There's rules about stuff like camber and pressure but I guess there wasn't any rule dictating that you put a tyre on the intended side of the car and the teams have discovered that putting them on opposite sides yields a benefit so they do it.
Until they're told not to.

Even so, as I've already said, I'm not sure I buy the whole "blame it on tyre-swapping" thing either.
All the compression and deflection forces on the tyre are the same regardless of which side the tyre is on.
The only thing that's different are rotational forces and that shouldn't have an effect on stuff like sidewall strength.

Even then the rotational forces shouldn't be an issue because anything that happens to a tyre on the wrong side under acceleration should also be happening to a tyre on the right side under braking so they should be equally durable in both situations.

The only justifiable excuse would be if they were, for example, taking the tyres off the rims and then fitting them on the rims the wrong way around.
In that situation it could be argued that the inner and outer sidewalls are constructed differently and putting the tyre on the wrong way around meant that the respective sidewalls were being put under stresses they were never intended for.

If you're just swapping tyres from side to side, however, the outer sidewall is still on the outside of the wheel regardless of which side of the car it's on.

All true of course! However this is F1 so the truth will presumably more devious than either 'it's Pirelli's sole fault' or 'the teams are not running the tyre as to the spec'. Good job they have a rational governing body to smooth over all the rough edges

Hmmm, FP1 & 2 at the 'ring kinda dull.

Balance of power seems to have shifted back to RBR slightly.
I guess even though they were the first to swap their tyres over, they weren't the team who got the biggest benefit from it.

Shame really. I was looking forward to a season where Rosberg or Hamilton might have actually been able to push Vettel for the championship.

At the moment it seems like Lotus and FI are making a fuss about the tyres more as a means of limiting the deficit in speed they have rather than because the current tyres actually give them an advantage.
Still, I guess that might change again when F1 goes back to hot countries.

Saw about 10 minutes, JB briefly as high as 5th... is the McLaren any more competitive here or are the others merely sandbagging?

Nah,

I doubt there's much sandbagging going on. They'll all be trying to figure out where they're at with the tyre situation.

If Button was 5th fastest it was probably just a result of who was running what tyres at the time.
The Merc's were good on the option tyre this morning but this afternoon the big players were running the options and primes and the RBRs were fastest on the primes and didn't look as ragged as other cars.
The Lotus was fairly fast on the primes but it looked pretty scary to drive.

Basically, with things as they are now, it looks like RBR is going to be the class of the field again, Merc' will take a step back and rejoin the 3-way scrap between themselves, Lotus and Ferrari for the podium positions and McLaren is around 1s off the pace.

Hamilton, in particular, seems to have gone back to being less happy with the way the Merc' brakes.
Dunno if that's a tyre thing or just that he's not keen on this circuit.

Ugh...

Sky reporting that Nicole has dumped Lewis again.
Guess we can write off the rest of his season then.

Isn't this like the fifth time they have broken up?

Williams' 600th race has started well, a KERS failure and both cars out in Q1