Noniin. Täälläkin on keskustelu käynnissä. Pistänpä tähän idawari nimisen henkilön postauksen tuolta planet-f1:sen forumilta. Kyseinen henkilö tiivisti loistavasti tilanteen - allekirjoittaneen mielestä.
I read one excellent post on this topic in
"There has been some suspicion from the Bridgestone teams that michelin has been cheating for some time now. remember Ross Brawn being angry about teams using very scrubbed tyres?? and also why the michelin tryes for the past 2 years have suffered from graining before suddenly picking up performance.This sudden loss in performance only to be regained in about 5 or 10 laps has always been a mystery to most engineers in this field. this is because this is the time in which the tyres are worn down and as it wears, the contact patch increases considerably due to the shape of the tyre. also at the time, the bridgestone tyres would have expanded to their maximum contact patch due to the heat which does not exceed the allowed size even when worn down so that there is the minimum depth of the grove on the tyres. This was ingenious on the part of michelin and they have used this philosophy in LeMans racing to great effect. The standard practice of the FIA of measuring the contact patch only before the race has allowed this to happen. Now, in all other racing categories where there is a stipulation involving a maximum contact patch, and Michelin is involved with other manufacturers, you might see a protest of results due to the fact that this has come to light.
those of you who are engineers or studied physics at school will know that any material will deform under load and you have a very high vertical load in F1 due to the DOWNFORCE generated by the cars(typically more that one and a half times the weight of the car). bridgestone took this deformation into account in the design of their tyres, hence their tyres never exceed the 270mm contact patch in any condition.
Because of the shape of the michelin tyre, the maximum allowable contact patch is quickly exceeded as soon as a few laps are put on it, due to wear. (Remember Montoya's Superpole laps on scrubbed tyres last season???? 7 in succession)This is a trick michelin caught on at the 2001 San Marino Grand prix where they ran supersoft tyres that when measured before use do not exceed the contact patch allowed but under loading will do so, hence the faster lap times conpared to the bridgestones at that race.
If you think about the loading on a formula one tyre, and the effect of groves on the tyre performance, then having a contact patch that is 10mm wider than that of your opponents effectively eliminates the effect of one grove. Hence the increase in performance.
this also explains why the michelins perform better during very hot track conditions and worse during cold conditions. While the bridgestone tyres have 2 options for coping with very hot track conditions, either making the front tyres smaller to cope with the anticipated expansion ( this would be expensive because you have to build cast a different mould just for this) or use a harder compound ( cheaper, but less performance).
Michelin on the other hand, have a tyre with a greater linear expansivity, hence it will quickly expand and produce a bigger contact patch than allowed and since this is intrinsically linked with temperature, the hotter the track condition, the more expansion you have and a bigger contact patch. the reverse applies for a cold day, the cooler the track conditions, the tyre shrinks a lot more than the brigdestone and the result is a smaller contact patch and this results in lower performance compared to the brigdestone.
This is also shown to be true in the lack of performace with tracks with high speed corners, because a soft tyre cannot withstand the sudden change in direction due to the softer sidewall. Hence BMW williams are afraid of Suzuka, SPa and Silverstone where they know they have an inherent performance difference due to the softer sidewalls on their tyres.
This is why the michelins have always excelled in hot track conditions. and they suffer badly when it gets cold. This problem has not been noticed for a while because for the past 2 years, Brigdestone has had a better tyre compound and construction method. now that they are reasonably close to each other in terms of compound and construction, the michelin design is showing more performance because of the increased contact area under load and with increased temperature.
My only concern is that Michelin has exploited this loophole in the application of the rules and Brigdestone has not caught on to this earlier. the rules state that the contact patch must not exceed 270mm and because the contact patch is only measured before the race, Michelin decided to exploit this. Now that it is going to be measure before and after the race, they know that their tyres will not comply and that this has been their design philosophy all along."
Eli ei nyt ihan puhtaita jauhoja Michelinillä ole pussissa, jos ajatellaan sääntöjen nk. "henkeä".
Ei ihme, että Monty otti viime vuonna niitä paaluja. Michelinin pojat suunnittelivat renkaan, joka oli sääntöjen vastainen ajattaessa, mutta rajamailla mitattaessa.
Mielestäni FIA:lla on oikeus puuttua epäkohtaan, joka on varsin iso tässä tapauksessa. Misukoiden käyttäjät saavat epäreilua etua renkaistaan ja nyt Mosley kumppaneineen uhkaa ottaa sen pois. Tämä olisi tietenkin pitänyt tehdä jo aikoja sitten, tarkemmin sanoen viimevuonna (1.9.2002). Mutta tämmöisiä äkkipikaisia päätöksiä on nähty aikaisemminkin (80-luvulla), mutta ne ovat vaipuneet unholaan.
Mestaruuden arvon voi sitten kyseenalaistaa kauden jälkeen. Jos Misukat pakotetaan vaihtorumbaan ja Ferrari voittaa, F1-forumin Häkkis/Kimi jesuuitat tuomitsevat punaiset. Jos Misukat saavat jatkaa samaa peliä, ja Kimi/Monty voittaa mestaruuden, niin sitten taas meikäläinen, parin muun Schumi4everin ja Monza4everin, nyrpistelee kulmakarvojaan.
Vahinko on jokatapauksessa jo tehty. Saadaan taas odotella sitä mediarumbaa, joka tulee kotiovelle - ensi viikon kuluessa. Tuska ja ahdistus.
<small>[ 31-08-2003, 04:35: Message edited by: Ferrari 4ever ]</small>
