I do not understand the rule at all. F1 is all about safety lately - with the mechanics unable to cheer at the side of the circuit - and they remove tyre blankets? Removing tyre blankets is in my opinion even more dangerous. Imagine de Vries coming out of the pits with fresh slicks and missing the first corner because his tyres are not at temperature - with Alonso next to him. Then his career is definitely over.
It’s doable, other series do it (F2, Indy). I just don’t think the pirelli tyres are made to heat up properly by being driven.
I’m 100% behind removing the blankets. One of the stated impacts is towards sustainability targets. However, the main contribution to F1 emissions is shipping/logistics. Until they address the calendar and the ridiculous waste associated to the unnecessary jet setting across the world, it’s all meaningless.
Also I want to see drivers have to demonstrate the skill of managing tire heat.
Spot on, it’s window dressing to such an absurd point
Teams: will it make the racing interesting and more competitive?
Everyone: Yes
Teams: Then no thank you.
That’s why I’m much more invested in WEC and Indycar, I want to watch a race, not a billion dollar procession.
@goldenjoe6 I’m sure they’ll get rid of them eventually. Them not doing it now doesn’t mean they have to keep the blankets for years to come.
I’ve been really looking forward to finally having no tyre blankets, could have made racing a bit more interesting and added another important dynamic to driver skill.
It’s a shame they seem against it.
@Fingerthief @goldenjoe6 I am seeing everyone say no tyre blankets would make racing more competitive, but I don’t think I understand why. Can you explain?
Regardless of if they remove or keep the blankets, it will be the same for everyone, why would it make things more competitive? just because it is tougher to time a pitstop when you need extra time to get tyres up to temp or something?
Yep, if they tyres are already warmed, you can pop in and get the undercut by being faster, quicker. But, if there’s no heaters and the rubber isn’t sticky cold - you’ll lose lots more places, and add more risk of crashing, changing of places, shuffling of the feild etc.
@Tetractys I see. Thanks for explaining
To add onto that, I think it brings to the forefront each drivers own skill at warming up the tires and the risk vs rewards of being extra aggressive for quicker tire warmup could be interesting.
Not sure what the massive complaint is. Obviously we’re not going to use the current tire compounds without blankets, that would be stupid. Removing the blankets would come with adjustments to the compounds to allow for safe and effective use at ambient temps. My hope would be that it would allow for both overcut and undercut strategies to be useful, which could make the pit strategy super interesting.
I think that rule is stupid. They will save what? 230k per weekend, thats 5.3mil per season, and teams spend 135mil per season. Is that 5 mil that teams save really that important? If they really wanted to save enviroment and be “carbon neutral” they would at least try to make number of races smaller and calendar more enviroment friendly, this blanket bullshit is just PR.
Exactly, the calendar is absolutely insane, fix the damn logistics that not only are far from efficient from an environmental standpoint - that has to take a toll on the teams and the personnel and I believe we’re getting, step by step, closer to them saying ok enough
230k to heat tryes is insane. Why’s it so expensive?
Well you need a lot of energy to keep tires hot, also I think that they need to heat tires 1-2h before sessions (not sure about this) and also whole session, so those blankets are turned on a lot of time during the weekend.
Lame. Everybody wanna be Senna nobody wanna be Senna
