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User avatar
By overboost
#445001
FIA, Pirelli, FOM, and Mercedes approve the thin tire for next year. :rolleyes:

Merc must have liked their thin tires so much in the three races this season that they have had it extended it to all 21 races next season.

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/pirel ... s/3211506/

So it is official. Hamilton and Mercedes will be champions again for 2019.

At least we didn't have to wait until pre-season testing to know the winners for 2019. :thumbdown:
User avatar
By sagi58
#445015
All I can say is, good thing it doesn't benefit Ferrari,
or the conspiracy theories would be burning up the net...
User avatar
By overboost
#445665
Quote from Marko today in Montreal - 2019 tires made to benefit Mercedes:

Dr Helmut Marko - "At the moment, Mercedes has a huge advantage, thanks to this stupid change with the tires. There are nine teams who have difficulty with it and only one team that knows how to profit from it. At the moment, the lap in which you warm up your tires is more important than the lap in which you drive the qualification. If you don't get the tires at the ideal temperature, you're ruined, ".

"If at some point we have the fastest car on the field and the safety car enters the track, the tires cool down in such a way that we are the bobbin," Marko continues. "The adjustment to the tires came after a request from Mercedes, because they always had blisters. This is how the sport is ruined, "the consultant from Red Bull Racing is disappointed.

Because the team from Milton Keynes is not competitive now, the Austrian racing team runs the risk of Max Verstappen leaving. Marko agrees that he is afraid of the departure of the great talent. "That is clear, but at the moment there is only one winning car and that is Mercedes',"
User avatar
By overboost
#445667
https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/1137352057210527745

"Ferrari & Red Bull are leading a group of teams trying to convince Pirelli to go back to tyres with a thicker tread as quickly as possible. Arguing the new thinner tread tyres are bad for the show."

Apparently 70% of teams are required to force Pirelli to move away from their Merc Spec tires.
User avatar
By overboost
#445670
Wolff is not happy with the attempts to go back to the non-Merc Spec tires.

So there must be something to this. Merc obviously benefiting at the expense of the rest.

Toto Wolff called it "opportunistic actionism".

Everyone else calls it Mercedes domination.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/14397 ... yre-change
Last edited by overboost on 10 Jun 19, 17:21, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By gdh
#445677
Well all the other teams could pull a 2005 Indy as a real protest. This early on in the season the Constructor’s is over and looking like the driver’s is done as well. Better sooner than later and keep it up until this mess is fixed.
User avatar
By sagi58
#445692
Quote from Marko today in Montreal - 2019 tires made to benefit Mercedes:


And, this is "new"?

Let's face it, EVERYTHING that has transpired
since Mercedes came back to F1 has been an
advantage/benefit to that ONE team!
User avatar
By overboost
#445700
^Sad but true.

And they aren't even trying to hide it anymore.
User avatar
By sagi58
#445708
^Sad but true.

And they aren't even trying to hide it anymore.


The best place to "hide" something is out in the open.
User avatar
By overboost
#445796
F1 teams to formally meet Pirelli/FIA over switch back to 2018 tyre

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/14441 ... 1#cxrecs_s

Formula 1 teams will meet with the FIA and Pirelli on Friday morning in Austria to formally discuss going back to the 2018 tyre construction, Autosport has learned.

The meeting has been called by the governing body amid concerns from a number of teams that this season's move to thinner tread tyres has hurt their form and helped Mercedes stretch its advantage at the front of the field.

While discussions have taken place among teams in private, the French Grand Prix has increased the conviction of a number of outfits that changes are needed to stop the 2019 season being a turn-off for fans.

The situation has prompted the FIA's head of single-seater technical matters Nikolas Tombazis to call a meeting before the opening practice session in Austria to see whether there is the majority support required to make a change for after the summer break.

Pirelli reduced the thickness of the tread this season by 0.4mm in a bid to rid the tyres of the overheating and blistering issues that made teams unhappy last year.

A secondary consequence of this change is that the tyre-temperature operating window is now higher, leaving some teams - such as Ferrari and Haas - struggling to get their tyres working properly.

Several teams believe the change in operating temperature has been perfect for Mercedes because it has historically struggled to avoid overheating its tyres.

While Pirelli has been aware of a number of teams eager for change, it has repeatedly said that it cannot do anything until there is a formal request for the tyres to revert to the 2018 specification.

Under F1's rules, a tyre specification change will require support from seven of the 10 teams - and there is no guarantee that level of support will be reached.

Ferrari, Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Haas are eager for change, but both Alfa Romeo and Renault have expressed initial reservations about a mid-season switch.

Mercedes will be against the switch, and McLaren is also understood to be against the change since its car works well with the 2019 tyres.

Williams will likely align itself with Mercedes since it has close ties to its engine supplier, and deputy team principal Claire Williams intimated that her team's car also works better on the 2019 tyres.

It means the key vote to get seven in favour could come down to Racing Point which, while a customer of Mercedes, has faced its own headaches getting on top of the tyres for qualifying.

Should the meeting conclude that seven teams are in favour, then it is understood that Pirelli could be ready to bring the new specification tyres to the Belgian Grand Prix at the end of August.

Speaking at the French GP last weekend, Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff said he felt it was wrong that teams were trying to change the rules to slow his team down.

"It's pretty logical that the ones that will feel that they haven't understood the tyre properly will try to trigger a change in the tyre," he said when asked about the 2018 tyre proposal by Autosport.

"My sportsman approach is that I don't think F1 should change the rules because some are doing better than others.

"I don't mean in an arrogant way. But on the contrary, this is an unforgiving high-tech sport. We have given it a big push over the winter to get on top of our set-up issues, and understand how the tyres functioned last year."

Haas driver Romain Grosjean, whose team has faced particular angst with tyre behaviour this year, was quick to confirm he would be among those attending the meeting on Friday.

"I don't what they've changed, I don't know what they've done," said Grosjean when asked his view on the 2019 tyres versus last year's compound by Autosport.

"Does it feel different? Well, it definitely feels much harder to work. "But I don't know what the difference is from last year. There wasn't supposed to be any difference, just a thinner tread.

"At Le Castellet last year we didn't have any issues. I don't know why it was so hard this year, especially with the big wings we have.

"We know we've got more downforce, so why can't we get them to work?"

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