Pirelli Rubber Years.

[What's Burning?]

Figured I'd start a new thread as there will likely be lots to compare from last year's rubber. First and most visible is...

Pirelli's tires for 2012 are brighter, squarer and softer, the Italian marque announced on Wednesday.

F1's official supplier had summoned F1 journalists to the venue of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to launch its second season on the grid.

This year's range is "more angular" and the compounds are softer, while the wet tires bear the word 'Cinturato' — the brand of Pirelli's F1 debut in 1951.

The colored sidewall markings, meanwhile, are bigger and brighter.

President Marco Tronchetti Provera told reporters the tires are designed for "deliberate degradation" in order to produce "spectacular races."

And Pirelli's F1 boss Paul Hembery said he is looking for a replacement for the 2009 Toyota test car, with talks scheduled for a forthcoming meeting of the F1 Commission.

Former Renault driver Vitaly Petrov — in Abu Dhabi — is a likely signing if he does not find a race or reserve seat, but existing tester Lucas di Grassi may also be retained.

[scotty]

Rear tyres are reportedly holding up a bit better (ie relative to fronts) than last season's did. Many implications with that.

Compound time gaps are now supposedly around 0.5s rather than 1-1.2s.

[racechick]

Whoever would have thought rubber could get so complicated! Dont you just love smilies

[LRW]

Whoever would have thought rubber could get so complicated!

Charles Marie de La Condamine

[racechick]

Whoever would have thought rubber could get so complicated!

Charles Marie de La Condamine

Does he make things that sound a bit like the last part of his name? And are made out of rubber?

[stonemonkey]

Whoever would have thought rubber could get so complicated!

Charles Marie de La Condamine

Does he make things that sound a bit like the last part of his name? And are made out of rubber?

From the wiki it sounds like they were researching something like that:

After returning to Quito on 20 June 1737, he found that Godin refused to disclose his results, whereupon La Condamine joined forces with Bouguer. The two men continued with their length measurements in the mountainous and inaccessible region close to Quito.

Though without Godin they didn't come up with a complete range of sizes.

[andrew]

After returning to Quito on 20 June 1737, he found that Godin refused to disclose his results, whereupon La Condamine joined forces with Bouguer. The two men continued with their length measurements in the mountainous and inaccessible region close to Quito.

2 blokes alone in the inaccessible mountains measuring each others wangs!

Anyway, to tyres.....

[stonemonkey]

Anyway, to tyres.....

While they do sound a bit better I still don't really like whst they're doing.

[What's Burning?]

Now I'm confused... has there been a decision made finally as to a specific set of qualifying only tires? I seem to recall last year during the regulation changes the idea was to give the teams just one compound to work with for qualifying and to be used only during qualifying. But I'm not sure if it was signed off on.

[scotty]

The only thing i found on the official site about tyres is:

All tyres allocated to a driver may now be used on the first day of practice; formerly only three sets were permitted.

And something in more detail here. But it doesn't mention quali tyres.

[LewEngBridewell]

At the end of the day, let's just be thankful we don't have a tedious tyre-war.

[darwin dali]

Posting this from ESPNF1 just for reference down the road:

Under the regulations each driver will receive six sets of the harder compound and five sets of the softer compound for the race weekend and Pirelli will also bring its intermediate tyre (four sets per driver) as well as its full wet tyre (three sets per driver) in case of rain.

[madbrad]

Don't use rubber. Rubber breaks. But I don't wanna talk 'bout it.

[darwin dali]

Don't use rubber. Rubber breaks. But I don't wanna talk 'bout it.

Feel free to use sheep skin then...

[What's Burning?]

Don't use rubber. Rubber breaks. But I don't wanna talk 'bout it.

Feel free to use sheep skin then...

You should stock up, the way conservative politicians here in America are going, we'll have a ban on all forms of birth control. If Pierelli made condoms, like their tires last year I'd be concerned when the cliff hit. Then again you'd have to be able to drive long enough to wear them out.

Now, back on topic...

Pirelli has announced which of its new compounds will be used at each of the first three races of the year, with its new soft and medium compound tyres set to travel to the season-opener in Australia.

The Italian tyre manufacturer picks two of its four compounds (supersoft, soft, medium, hard) to take to each race, and it has selected the medium and hard compounds for the second round at the high-speed Sepang circuit in Malaysia and the soft and mediums for the third round in China.

And revamped colors and graphics with green now being inters and blue full wet.