Many journalists are asking the question. Who will be next year's tyre supplier?
After AMuS did a report, Autosport (JN) adds it's concearn.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82214
This is a critical situation with no solution in sight. Bridgestone will officially retire from GP racing at the end of this season. There may be only two ways to convince them to keep going. Have them respond to the planned bid process or get paid for the tyres.
Not much is discussed about his subject. The FIA, Bernie and FOTA have been far too silent. It must be of the greatest concearn to Ecclestone and Todt. At the moment there are only stopgap solutions.
In November 2009, Bridgestome announced its unexpected departure. Both Hamashima and Yasukawa were firm in the decision. The new president Soshi Arakawa has absolutely no interest in racing. The reduction from 14 to 11 sets per car, per weekend was thought to be accomodating, but it was not enough for Bridestone.
Now it appears the FIA needs to go begging in Tokyo. Paying for the tyres may be an option. To supply tyres, allong with a total of 63 technicians, would be an extra expense for the team amounting to $5 mil or $6 mil dollars. That's more than the cost of the engines.
Other tyre manufacturers have expressed an interest but only if they are financially compensated.
Bridgestone spends about $$120 mil per year on the program. About half of this is written off as a marketing expense for which they must commit themselves to various contractual obligations. This expense, with marginal returns, is detering possible alternative suppliers such as Michelin, Goodyear and Pirelli. They all demand to be paid. After Bridgestone's announcement, the FIA has so far not issued a new tender. Why? It appears nobody was interested and the FIA wanted to save the embarassment.
It is certain that here will be no more free tyres. Potential newcommers such as Kumo and Hankook consider the risk too great. They lack the experience, the production facility and have no marketing "fit". To enter the sport in time for the next season is time-wise impossible. That leaves only Avon, who delivers the slicks for the historic Formula 1 races. But Bernie is not that generous with the cash and unlikely to fund this (or any) aspect of the sport. There is no development work happening at Avon. Their tyres are rock hard and the lap times would increase by 3 seconds.
Ecclestone and the FIA must realize that their plan to give one tyre supplier a monopoly has backfired. Tyre manufacturers (as Michelin has often said) will only invest funds if there is true competition. I fail to comprehend why Max (and company) did not believe this.
In these difficult economic times, the manufactureres have nothing to give away. We can say good bye to free tyres. The teams have been complaining about the reduction in the number of tyres available (44 per driver) but that too is a reality that may be reduced even further. Realists, like Torro Rosso's team boss Franz Trost see this situation clearly. "If we need to pay for the tyres, most teams will be satisfied with fewer sets. Only the teams with too much money will not be satisfied." The small and new teams will find the additional cost unsustainable. I can see that this tyre issue will trigger a new round of financial hardship.
So, what's the solution?

Interesting stuff. Can't see Michelin being interested after the way they were humiliated by Max and treated shodily in general.

Perhaps rock-hard Avons would be just the thing to improve the racing.

Good thread

This may lead F1 towards a full-race tyre in order to cut down on the costs. So with no pitstops at all either the races will become even more processional or they will become result lotteries at the end if the cars treat them badly.

Do Avon supply tyres of the right size or will F1 need to go <sharp intake of breath> low profile?

Thanks for translating Metz.

Michelin are interested.
And apparently they want to be compensated to a certain extent.

heres the answer

http://www.tirerack.com/

I wonder if they would accept Max's head on a pike as full and final payment for three years worth of unlimited tyres for all teams?

I'd think the obvious solution is to pay Bridgestone part of the costs.

And simplify things by only having the supersofts, with tyre changes optional.

They'd need fewer technicians, just one product...and tyres would wear out in the races = overtaking.

A bit of a doomsday story imo, let's wait for the FIA tender before panicking.

They should run on toyo 888's;)

It's a serious issue and we have been waiting for 4 months and the clock is ticking. How long do you think they can wait?

Second the Tire Rack option. How great would it be to see F1 cars on the same Toya RA1s that you can buy for your own track days? All the FIA has to do is mandate tires available for purchase by the general public, and watch Toyo, Kumho, Hoosier, etc. fall over themselves to sell sets of $350 slicks to the lot. Saves money, too!

This will not reduce the number of tyres. Nor the wets.
Paying for the tyres, like engines, is the only answer.
But who pays? If the teams pay for their own tyres, can they dictate specs?

There will have been contact with the various parties possibly interested in tendering, also about the time-frame that's the way these things go. This isn't the first time FIA is tendering something.

It's quite a short schedule already, isn't it?
If no one is developing a new tire, this year Bridgestones will be the only available option.

Take a look at History of F1: there's plenty races with no pit stops and they sure aren't classified as procession or lottery.

This is F1 - 300 km sprint and end. Pit stops are for endurance races.

A pit stop in F1 should only mean that a car has some kind of problem.
Or... can suit sponsors agenda's and masking lack of competitive overtaking incompetent rules.

How long do you think they need?

I suggest that there are fast routes to F1 if a tyre company is prepared to pay out for Michelin or Bridgestone moulds and a few trade secrets. They'll only need a long time if they plan to develop from scratch.

It seems this will be the way for 2011.

Michelin is an option. But they want money and competition.
Tell me again why Max wanted a sole source?

I bet he wanted to kick out Michelin - they wanted toooo much racing for his taste.

Like that Pete Aaron or whomever in the Grand Prix movie at Monaco who stopped for a bit coz of a sticky gear shifter and look what happened! Oh is that a movie spoiler? lol

Not according to Senard:

Michelin would now consider returning even as sole supplier if more emphasis were placed on tire performance.

The FIA, FOTA, and Bridgestone have tried and failed to place an emphasis on tyre performance without competition between manufacturers.

Amazing how the last tyre war between Bridgestone and Michelin, whom I miss each time I view my R26 model car, resulted in MS winning his last race win at China 06, coz the track dried out haha. Or it would have been Michelin all the way...

Indeed. Things are done in a way that everybody uses the same tire at the same moment and pits at the same window.

They should bring 3 or 4 compounds and allow teams to choose the tire to use or to pit or not.

As always, F1 is leaving decision to an important matter to the last moment and I expect another self-inflicted wound.

Unless FIA and Bernard have decided to bend over and give Bridgestone whatever they demand, they should have announced a replacement supplier by now since any new supplier will need lot of testing miles to be able to deliver tires as reliable as existing Bridgestone ones.

If this results in a single type of tire per weekend (instead of this hard compound/soft compound gimmick) it won't necessarily be bad. And I do not agree with bringing back multiple suppliers to start tire wars: when there were tire wars most of couldn't wait for them to end and have a single supplier. Now we have a single supplier situation and we crave a tire war.

Somethings are not for sale at any price! I seriously doubt either Michelin or Bridgestone would hand over their F1 tire IP for $.

Well obviously Michelin do see potential for emphasizing tyre performance, why else would they be in talks with FIA.

 

Why not compensate by using wider tyres?





Why do you think another tyre war would be cheaper for the manufacturers? There was "true competition" until 2007 and we still had only two suppliers. And in that era of "true competition", GoodYear withdrew in '98, Pirelli in '91 and so on. There was plenty of opportunity to compete against other tyre manufacturers till then and we still had Bridgestone as the sole supplier in 1999 and 2000 until Renault brought back Michelin.

If they are so keen on competition, why doesn't that show in other OW-motorsport? There is no competition in either GP2, GP3, Indy, Formula Nippon, WSbR, F2, F3 Euro, British F3, Japanese F3 and there has been none in CCWS or A1GP. Yes, i am aware all of those are spec series but obviously the supplying manufacturers don't care that they're just racing themselves. The only tyre competition i can think of right now would be in sportscar racing and they always had way more suppliers than F1.

If they go to a hard tyre with no refuelling, the races will be a procession in 2011 as well as 2010 - so as far as I can see they simply can't supply fewer tyres, but they can make the production and logistics simpler by just having one (soft) spec of slicks.

Part payment is the answer, surely, there would be a big benefit to the tyre manufacturer. Just not the whole $120m of benefit.

I suspect Michelin will supply on the right terms, even as sole supplier. Max is gone and their fellow countryman Todt is in charge now, already adding Fenchness to F1 whenever possible. Michelin just don't want to say it out loud that Max was the factor.

Open competion between tyre suppliers seams to be the way to go.

Michelin have the expertise, manufacturing capability and logistical capacity to deliver F1 tyres at short notice. Since 2007 Bridgestone have not had to produce competitive tyres, because there has been no tyre war. So in reality tyre technology has stood still since 2006. Tyre costs in F1 by Bridgestone and Michelin, by and large have been written off against R&D tax breaks and promotion/advertising costs.

Maybe. But then again people complained about that too. For various reasons.

Well is it interesting? Tyre Brand A is faster than Brand B

We never know, or care, how they've done it.

More often it gets in the way of the competition we do want to see.

If they go to a hard tyre, they won't get the marbles building up off line so it may well be easier than it is now to go off line and overtake.

I still stand by what I said in a forum... somewhere... late last year: don't rule out Pirelli. Sure, they were making [still are?] noises suggesting the contrary, but still... times change very quickly in motorsport, and F1 especially.

This is possible, and maybe not such a bad thing.

Personally, as someone who has watched every F1 race for the last 25 years, I couldnt care less how hard the tyres are if the show is improved. The main reason tyres dont work off line is that they pick up so much rubbish offline making them lose grip accordingly. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise and could improve the overtaking situation...

If a team can build an F1 car....why dont they allow them to build a tyre for themselfs??
It will solve all the problems ....no more whining....no more tyre problems!
What do u guys think?

Good idea, but expensive - the smaller teams couldn't seriously do it without outsourcing the work to a specialist company - defeating the concept of your idea.

The sheer amauterism displayed by FIA time and again makes one wonder that everytime they do something is the first.

D246:

You are spot on, it was stupid, arrogant and over the top the way Max treated Michelin.

F1 needs a tyre war! I vote Michelin and Dunlop

That or the new supplier is open to bring multiple compounds to each race, at least three and teams get their pick before the weekend starts. Might jumble things up a bit. Would be great to see someone 3 stopping on softs that are much quicker vs someone on hards that last the whole race.

While we're at it, why not having the teams refine their own petrol and develop their own lubricants?

No tire war, please!

Did everyone forget how dumb it was? It didn't really matter how quick your car is because performance is related to the tires. If you have good tires for a certain track you will be faster than the other teams even if they potentially have a better car. If you're on the wrong tires you can lock yourself out of contention for the entire weekened through no fault of your own.

Yea, hopefully the solution will be multiple tire suppliers, we need a tire war!

Bring it on!!

a new manufactorer wont want to run the same size tyres as bridgestone, imo

might be a great opportunity to run big fat slicks again, specialy at the rear :]

That site is confusing though.
I used the "Shop By Vehicle" helper. I entered my car as a Ferrari and it didn't show F10

I tried to say my car was a Force India and it wasn't even listed...maybe the site just isn't updated

oh I doubt they would do it - but it would get my vote too

But that's part of F1 though. I always found it fascinating back in the day when different tracks suited different packages. Turbos, non turbos, V8, V10, etc. etc. I think a tire war might bring this exact thing back, not knowing what the better package will be might brong a cartain randomness that we desperately need. Michelins might be better Qualifiers, but Dunlops might be better racers, and Dunlops might be the faster race tire but degrade faster than the Pirellis. And of course from track to track this performance difference might vary, it might even bring a midfielder up to play with the big boys from time to time. Good stuff if you ask me!

You seem hung up on the re-fueling era where being faster was the ONLY importance, degradation was a very small part of it it was just about graining and crap. We're not in that era anymore.

Make them drive on cross-ply remoulds...

Men - Boys separated in an instant!!!!