How Often Do You Look at a Man’s Shoes? – The Tires Powering Formula 1 | Hitting the Apex

Formula 1 is widely considered the highest form of Motorsport.

This is due to the extreme engineering, the financial outlay, and the caliber of drives.

But how often do you think about the tires?

And yes, I’m aware in Formula 1, they tend to adopt the British spelling of “tyres,” but I’m proudly American, so you’re getting “tires” here.

Formula 1 has a long, complicated history with tires.

And the task presented to Formula 1’s current tire supplier, Pirelli, is not as simple as building the “best” tire.

Tire Wars, Madness, and Farce

Over the history of Formula 1, there have been 8 tire manufacturers, and as many as 6 at one time in 1954 and 1958.

The last 2 decades have seen 3 tire manufacturers: Bridgestone, Michelin, and current tire manufacturer Pirelli.

Bridgestone ended 2 years as the sole supplier in 2001, and a Tire War ensued. With teams competing for every fraction of a second, choosing one tire manufacturer over the other could provide a remarkable competitive advantage, or disadvantage.

And without cost caps, Formula 1 exploded. Ferrari partnered with Bridgestone (via unlimited testing) to hone the tires exactly to their specification. Michelin opted for a faster, but less durable tire. Most teams opted for Michelin believing that Bridgestone tires really only worked best on Ferraris.

The United States Grand Prix in 2005 all but ended the Tire War. Michelin’s lack of durability, as well as the strange asphalt, meant that the tires were deemed unsafe for running. When the FIA and Michelin could not agree on a way to run their cars, the Michelin runners did the formation lap and pulled into the pits. The FIA’s relationship with Michelin was forever strained, and Michelin exited the sport a year later.

So if Michelin “lost” the Tire War, did Bridgestone win? Not exactly.

With the reintroduction of tire changes in 2006, there were two tire compounds: (1) the harder “prime” tire and (2) the softer “option” tire. The option tire was faster, but would ostensibly wear out quickly.

The issue is that the “option” tires were too good, often being so durable that outside of the forced pit stop (the 2 compound rule existed back then), it would be faster to run the entire race on “option” tires. Bridgestone (and Michelin prior to leaving the sport) had been tasked with building less durable tires, but were struggling to do so.

The Canadian Grand Prix That Changed Everything

The 2010 Canadian Grand Prix changed the way modern Formula 1 is designed. This great video from Autosport is worth a watch, and I will not plagiarize it here.

But as far as tires are concerned, they wore out at a much higher rate than normal, and teams had to adjust on the fly with complicated strategies.

Which made the racing better. Much better.

It was a Eureka moment for Formula 1 of sorts, accelerating the journey to tire manufactured tire inconsistency.

Bridgestone exited the sport after 2010, citing high costs. Formula 1 was looking for a new manufacturer to usher in this new era as they tried to transition from Tire War to Tire Wear

Pirelli – The Impossible Task and Amazing Results

A tire is first and foremost a safety device. It’s easy to lose focus on that, but with the rate a Formula 1 car is traveling, and the tires being the only thing that contacts the ground (with the exception being Red Bull, when they have a flexi-wing. That’s a deep cut for you F1 veterans), if they are unsafe in any way, the cars can’t run. Michelin proved this in the 2005 US Grand Prix.

But Pirelli’s task was not to produce the best quality, most durable, safest, or even fastest tire. It was to produce several different tires with different wear rates and pace, and get them in an optimal zone so that it could conceivably make sense to use any tire, depending on the strategy you go for.

Fans of modern Formula 1 probably won’t remember how challenging it was for Pirelli to get to this point. Early in the Pirelli Era, the tire rate was so rapid that being on the wrong tire could turn a driver into sitting duck. That can still happen today, but it’s mostly a result of strategy screw up.

As Pirelli developed their tires, they kept getting closer to the zone. But rules around tires were changing. Now, Pirelli had to select which compounds to take to the race, with C1 being the hardest and C5 being the softest.

When I spoke to Pirelli Director of Motorsport Mario Isola, he talked about the challenges Pirelli is able to overcome. With every circuit being a different asphalt, with different weather, and with Pirelli only allowed to have one tire range for the entire season, they are tasked with designing a tire that can run everywhere. Not optimized anywhere, but capable everywhere, while still acquiescing to the desire that the tires wear exactly the right amount.

Coming into a new race like this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, there is no data for the track. Instead, Pirelli works with the gravel manufacturer to obtain samples and test the tires against it.

This year also added new, larger tires, which Pirelli has had to adjust to.

The remarkable thing is that incidents like the 2020 British Grand Prix with tire de-laminations are incredibly rare. The only discussion you’ll hear of the tires this weekend is around strategy and how to optimize pit stops versus pace versus tire wear.

And the reason for that is because Pirelli is successful in their task. More than a decade on from their re-entry into the sport (Pirelli was one of the original tire manufacturers at Formula 1’s inception), they have achieved the right balance of safety/durability, with wear, to allow teams to have pit stop variance and wide pit windows for optimal stops.

This race day, when you marvel at the amazing cars, and the skill of the drivers, take a moment to look at the cars’ shoes. They are second to none in modernity and engineering.

Vishnu Parasuraman is a contributor for @FiveReasonsSports. He covers the Miami Hurricanes  for Sixth Ring Canes and Formula 1 for Hitting the Apex. You can follow him on twitter @vrp2003