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Archive: Bridgestone

Sayonara Bridgestone

4 November 2009 22:39

The end of this season has not been a particularly healthy one for Formula 1. Two major names have left, and another has had an emergency meeting to consider if it should leave too.

First of all, the sole tyre supplier, Bridgestone, has announced that it will quit F1 at the end of 2011 when its current contract ends. This came as a shock. With the spotlight on car manufacturers, it doesn’t seem to have entered anyone’s mind that a company such as Bridgestone, which has been so incredibly loyal to the sport, would consider upping sticks.

I can remember a time when Bridgestone were not in F1, but only just. When I started watching Formula 1 in the mid-1990s, Goodyear was the sole tyre supplier. But Bridgestone entered in 1997, beginning the “tyre war”. When Goodyear left soon afterwards, it was not long until Michelin came in to begin an even fiercer tyre war.

I wasn’t a big fan of the tyre war. Mostly, one tyre was a major advantage over the other, so we were essentially left with two championships — a Bridgestone championship and a Michelin championship. Considering Bridgestone practically tailor-made their tyres to suit Ferrari, this essentially made Ferrari a shoo-in for the championship every year. That was until the 2005 regulations — which banned mid-race tyre changes — handed the advantage to Michelin in a big way.

2005 was the year when the tyre war well and truly jumped the shark. In the quest for the competitive edge, both companies had made their tyres softer and softer. The resurfaced banking at Indianapolis bit, Michelins exploded all over the shop and we were left with a farcical race in which only the six Bridgestone-shod cars competed.

On the back of the problems, the FIA decided that a sole company should supply the tyres for all the teams. The problem with this was that it had the potential to severely reduce the amount of exposure that tyre company got. With no tyre war to talk about, people might not talk about tyres. For this reason, Michelin refused to have any further part in F1.

The upshot was that Bridgestone and the FIA colluded to concoct the maddest new rules and gimmicks in order to contrive some interest in the tyres. One has to paint green lines all over the tyre in a crass attempt to pretend they care about the environment. Of course, the green on the tyres clashes with teams’ liveries, making the scheme not only nonsensical, but also damn ugly.

Teams are also forced to use a sub-optimal tyre compound at some point during the race. While this may have superficially “spiced up” the action, it is artificial. Drivers are critical of it, and Fernando Alonso even said that he would rather race with wet tyres on a dry circuit.

Moreover, there is a sense that Bridgestone may have deliberately made their tyres behave strangely in an attempt to get drivers and teams discussing tyres with the media. Nick Heidfeld has said that the tyres could be “ten times better”. Joe Saward expanded:

The Bridgestones react differently on each car and finding the tricks that make them work is not easy. Some drivers can do it at some tracks and not at others. Even World Championship challenger Jenson Button has struggled with this…

Bridgestone seems to have concluded that it is better to have people talking about the tyres rather than not talking about them – even if a lot of the references are negative.

I rejoiced when it was announced that a “control” tyre was to be brought in. But it has brought the wrong sort of control. I am not too sure that the current dark behaviour is an improvement over the honest competition of the tyre war.

If you have reached the stage where your marketing strategy is to have people make negative comments about your product, it probably is time to call it a day.

In many ways, Bridgestone get a huge amount of brand exposure through their involvement in F1. As noted in this week’s Formula1Blog.com podcast, you simply cannot watch a Grand Prix without learning that Bridgestone supply the tyres. Yet, after thirteen seasons (fifteen by the time they leave), the marginal returns to their investment must surely have diminished to almost zero. And As Keith at F1 Fanatic has pointed out, their costs are set to soar as they now have to supply twelve or thirteen teams rather than ten.

Nonetheless, it is a shock and a surprise that Bridgestone, a company that has stuck with F1 through thick and thin since 1997, has so abruptly pulled the plug. Now the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone will have a big headache trying to find someone to take Bridgestone’s place. With bridges burned with Goodyear and Michelin, and Pirelli uninterested, options seem thin on the ground.

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The testing ban: another botched rule change?

4 March 2009 01:49

Categories: News, Opinion

It has to be said, unintended consequences are never far away in the world of F1 rule changes. For just one example, take a look at how quickly aerodynamic flick-ups have resurfaced, despite their supposed banning. Skate fins? What on earth?

Now we are presented with a number of oddities that have come about as a result of this season’s new testing restrictions. In-season testing is banned completely. Each team is limited to 15,000km, but according to James Allen it looks as though no teams will top 10,000km, because this year’s testing events have been so heavily disrupted. Teams that go to Portugal and Spain get relentlessly rained on. Those that go to Bahrain are treated to sandstorms.

Moreover, what little testing time there is has been eaten into by the need to test 2010-spec tyres. The bans in refuelling and tyre warmers coming into effect next season will put different demands on the tyres. As such, Bridgestone need to get data so that they don’t end up barking up the wrong tree as they develop the new tyres. But with no opportunity to do this later on in the season, some teams (McLaren and BMW) have had to sacrifice some time from their already tight pre-season test schedule.

Now McLaren’s test driver Pedro de la Rosa has expressed concerns that the lack of test time is actually dangerous for reserve drivers. Should a reserve have to come in for some reason, he will be thrown into the deep end, straight into the action having had little experience of the car. That would be bad enough in a normal year, but with the radical rule changes that have come into force this season you can expect out-of-practice drivers to be even rustier.

Now it is becoming obvious that the testing restrictions are damaging the careers of young drivers. All winter, it had looked as though Rubens Barrichello’s chances of retaining his seat at Honda / Brawn were close to zero. Reading some reports, you’d believe that Bruno Senna was practically a shoo-in.

Now it looks as though Barrichello has been given the nod, leaving Senna with nowhere to go. The ever-excellent Grandprix.com trailed the possibility a few days ago, noting that “Barrichello is a better bet [than Senna] as his experience will be useful in a year when there is little opportunity for young drivers to learn how to drive F1 cars.”

From this perspective, it looks like Honda / Brawn have made the right decision here. Moreover, Barrichello outperformed Button last season, and it would have been a real shame if Barrichello’s career ended with a snub. Mind you, there is the risk that Barrichello will have a David Coulthard-style final season of doom, and we wouldn’t really want that.

But what now for Bruno Senna? Holding out for an F1 seat, he has more or less ruled out staying in GP2 for a third season. Indeed, it is difficult to see what he could achieve with another year in GP2. Drivers who spend too long in a category like GP2 tend to have their potential stunted.

In a sense, this is a predicament which is yet another symptom of the serial mismanagement at Honda which has deteriorated this winter to extreme levels for obvious reasons. Senna sounds pretty frustrated over this situation, and wouldn’t you be?

But any other year it would be no big deal. Senna could sign as a test driver for one year, as countless other drivers have done before, and spend the season racking up the miles on the test track in preparation for his first full season. And should he needed to replace another driver mid-season, he would have experience required of him.

Failing that, he could have gone on to make a decent career as a test driver. It may not have the glamour of a race role, and you can bet your bottom dollar that all test drivers yearn to race. But it is, at least, a decent income earned from driving cars — and they can always hope. People like Luca Badoer, Marc Gené, Anthony Davidson, Alexander Wurz and, yes, Pedro de la Rosa, have all made a decent living out of testing F1 cars. Felipe Massa started out at Ferrari as a test driver, and today he challenges for Championships.

Now what? All Bruno Senna can do is twiddle his thumbs. He can always suffer the humiliation of going back cap in hand to a GP2 seat. But this could backfire on him, and all the best seats have already been filled.

Could this be one reason why there is only going to be one rookie this season? Sébastien Buemi is the only newcomer to F1 this season, but he has done plenty of testing for the Red Bull teams and he is filling a vacancy that David Coulthard voluntarily left behind.

Remember when everyone was certain that Renault were not going to re-sign Nelsinho Piquet? Then, out of nowhere, they signed him for another season. Is that because, for all his faults, he at least has experience that the likes of Romain Grosjean and Lucas Di Grassi now cannot hope to attain?

Let us not forget another major FIA-instituted change for 2009, which is yet another instance revealing the lack of joined-up thinking inside the FIA. This season sees the inauguration of Max Mosley’s Formula Two project. Remember, this new feeder series was supposedly invented specifically to make it easier for young drivers to reach F1.

Well, it’s all very well adding yet another “second-top” rung in an already-cluttered world that contains GP2, A1GP and World Series by Renault among others. But the top rung now has a fundamental crack that will cause the ladder collapse when a driver reaches it, sending him — and his career — crashing to the floor.

There might be an allowance in F1 for “young driver training”, but this is no more than a fig leaf. A “young driver” is someone who has not tested on more than four days in the past 24 months. How is a young driver supposed to progress with such scant “training”?

Max Mosley likes to use F2 to make out that he is opening doors for young drivers. The reality is that this door leads drivers up the garden path. There have seldom, if ever, been as many feeder series as there are today. An F1 team can take their pick from 20+ GP2 drivers, countless A1GP drivers, anyone from WSR who takes their fancy and goodness knows how many F3 drivers. F2 isn’t needed, especially now that young drivers will find the welcome mat at F1′s door cruelly swiped from their feet.

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Has the end of the tyre war changed anything?

18 August 2008 17:25

Categories: Opinion

By the end of 2006, I was thoroughly fed up with the tyre war. When Michelin left Formula 1 I was glad. This wasn’t because I have anything against the French company, but because I was simply fed up with championships seemingly being decided almost entirely by tyres — literally black boxes. Formula 1 had become a glorified tyre championship.

Two years on, and I’m beginning to wonder if anything actually changed. Even with a single tyre manufacturer, the performance of the teams seems to fluctuate wildly for seemingly little reason. And what is that reason? Tyres of course.

This seems to be the stock excuse that explains just about everything in F1. If Sébastien Bourdais is not performing, it’s the tyres. If Nick Heidfeld is struggling in qualifying, it’s the tyres. If Kimi Räikkönen is trundling around in 6th place, it’s the tyres.

Now Ferrari have been complaining about the compounds that Bridgestone have chosen in recent races, claiming that Bridgestone have tended to edge towards the harder end of the range. Hard tyres, we now know, suit McLaren well, whereas Ferrari prefer softer tyres.

Ferrari’s technical director, Aldo Costa, complained in particular about the compounds that Bridgestone took to Hockenheim — a race that the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton dominated:

I think the last race for us was very difficult for finding the good grip from the tyres, but we were not the only team. Most of the drivers were having, during the race mainly, a lot of problems to find grip.

The tyres were very, very hard, probably too hard for that kind of circuit, especially the hard tyre. There was no wear at all; the tyre just was not working for that kind of circuit. This was valid for us and it was valid as well for most of the teams.

It is a bit rich for Ferrari to be complaining about Bridgestone. The Japanese tyre company has spent the best part of the past decade pandering to the Scuderia’s every need while every other Bridgestone runner was told to suck it. At least Bridgestone are now treating their role as sole tyre supplier to F1 without favouring their old partners any more.

Bridgestone’s Hirohide Hamashima has backed up the theory:

“Basically the Ferrari has more of a tendency to understeer than the McLaren,” Hamashima told autosport.com. “The McLaren is a little bit oversteery. When the tyre has good grip, the car with the oversteer tendency will be quicker over a single lap than a neutral or understeering car.

“But when you think about racing conditions – especially with the temperatures we had at the Hungaroring – then an oversteering car will have heat generating at the rear much higher than the understeering car.

“Looking at Hungary and (Lewis) Hamilton’s car behaviour, after a few laps he struggled with oversteer – so he was making lots of counter-steering movements. On the other hand the Ferrari had a good balance after a few laps.

“That’s why the temperature is making a difference.”

I have learned this year that even with just one tyre manufacturer in F1, tyres still make a huge difference to a team’s performance. You could argue that, when everyone is given the same tyres to use, it is up to the teams to find a way to maximise the performance of the tyres themselves. However, with four compounds for Bridgestone to choose from, the teams simply have to build their cars not knowing which tyres they will end up using most often.

Perhaps F1 could bring in a genuine control tyre, where Bridgestone make just one compound of tyre for all circuits so that the teams will know exactly what to expect all season. However, Bridgestone would be dead against this because they want people to talk about the tyres more often. Also the performance of the tyres would probably vary from team to team depending on the weather conditions and the characteristics of each circuit.

I suppose I should just accept that tyres will always play a huge role in motor racing. With tyres being the only part of the car that really propels the vehicle, their importance ought not to be such a surprise. But I’d even rather be talking about how important silly aerodynamic pieces like shark fins are than talk about these dull, dull, dull tyres.

3 comments

Which drivers missed slicks?

17 August 2008 17:49

Categories: History, Opinion

One driver whose coat is on a shoogly peg is Sébastien Bourdais. After a strong Australian Grand Prix, Bourdais’s season has been rather disappointing to say the least. He is completely anonymous during races. While this at least means he isn’t making many mistakes, the fact is that he is being utterly outclassed by his team mate Sebastian Vettel.

Bourdais has excused his performances, explaining that he will come good when slick tyres make their long-awaited return to F1. The Frenchman is of course used to slick tyres having used them for several years in ChampCar.

For the past decade Formula 1 has been unusual among motor racing categories for its use of grooved tyres in dry conditions. Slicks were abandoned in 1998 in a bid to reduce speeds amid a newly-ignited tyre war between Goodyear and Bridgestone. The powers that be were in no hurry to do away with grooves as the tyre war between Bridgestone and Michelin was even more intense. But now that Formula 1 now effectively has a control tyre with one supplier, the need to curb tyre development is no longer there.

Grooves were always unpopular among fans who prefer to look of a proper racing car with slick tyres. Drivers also tend to dislike grooves because of their reduced grip and the safety issues this entails. Grooves also reduced the role of mechanical grip which in turn put the emphasis on aerodynamics. This has led to a perceived reduction in the amount of overtaking.

Jacques Villeneuve was particularly outspoken about the introduction of grooved tyres.

Later on that year he said “the new rules are bluntly shit.” For those comments, Villeneuve was punished by Max Mosley (whose vanity project grooved tyres was) through the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council.

It was always rather strange that a driver would come through the ranks from an entry-level series through to F3 then F3000 / GP2 always using slick tyres, then be expected to use grooved tyres when he reaches F1. Given that Sébastien Bourdais feels that he has not been able to show his true potential without slicks, has the past decade been a lost decade for top-level grand prix racing?

Which other F1 drivers might have been awesome if only they had slicks?

Would Pizza Boy have been the best thing since flattened bread? Not likely given that he even struggled in other formulae with slicks.

But perhaps a decent case can be made for some other drivers. Perhaps Robert Doornbos would have been slick on slicks. He did well in F3000 and even scored a couple of wins in ChampCar. Maybe Justin Wilson couldn’t get into the grooves. He has also had a strong career in the USA where slicks are the norm.

The reverse seemed to happen for Mika Häkkinen. When grooved tyres were introduced in 1998, Häkkinen’s hitherto dormant career exploded into action. His first win did come in 1997, on slicks, but that was effectively gifted to him. On the other hand, Häkkinen’s talent was plain for all to see even before 1998.

Do I think Sébastien Bourdais will improve on slick tyres? My feeling is that tyres have a small role to play. But it’s not a very significant role. I think it would be closer to the truth to say that the standards of driving in ChampCar are much lower than in F1 and Bourdais simply doesn’t have the talent to hold his own at the highest level.

3 comments

Is Felipe Massa championship material?

16 August 2008 17:17

Categories: Opinion

Felipe Massa remains, to me, the most mysterious driver on the grid — perhaps even more mysterious than Kimi Räikkönen. He has a reputation of being a highly erratic driver. And yet, had his engine now blown in Hungary he would be leading the championship. Indeed, as things stand he is only eight points away from the lead — not a million miles off.

He can have more spins than you can count in Silverstone, leave out the welcome mat for overtaking cars in Germany, then pull off one of the most amazing starts you have ever seen in Hungary. This repeats a similar pattern at the start of the season. He had a pair of embarrassing spins in Australia and Malaysia. Everyone was writing him off. And then bang, bang, bang — 28 points from three races.

The constant fall and rise, fall and rise characterises Felipe Massa. Is he genuine championship material or just a mediocre driver who is simply lucky enough to have a great car?

I was developing a theory about what was going on. Last week Bridgestone boss Hirohide Hamashima seemed to confirm it.

Hamashima has also shed some light on the fight at Ferrari between Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen — claiming the Brazilian is superior when the car is perfect, but Raikkonen excels when the driver has to overcome some technical deficiencies

“When the car conditions are very suitable for Felipe his abilities are 110%, but once the car is not so good his abilities are 90%,” he explained. “But Kimi could get the package performance at 100% even if the car condition is not so good.”

That fits with what is becoming clear about Felipe Massa. If conditions are not quite right, he is simply all over the place. Think of the rainy conditions at Silverstone, for instance. But when the car is well hooked-up, Massa is a machine. In Budapest, the warm temperatures suited the Ferrari down to the ground and Massa had an amazing start and drove a great race until his engine expired.

So, Massa excels when conditions are perfect for him, but can’t cope if the slightest thing is wrong. This begs the question though. Does this sort of driver deserve to win the World Championship? Should a Champion really be the sort of person who can cope with some drizzle? Someone who can cope with a bit of adversity? Or does his superiority in perfect conditions excuse his mishaps?

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