Rain tyres(or lack of)

[Marbot]

JB reckons two sets of rain tyres per w/end could prove dangerous www.f1racing.net could he have a point,thoughts please.

[Kicking-back]

F1 racing.net doing their usual cribbing stories from elsewhere - Jenson said this in an interview with Nigel Roebuck in the 23 December edition of Autosport.

The previous "x sets of tyres per weekend" did not include wets, so I see no reason why the new rule would.

[Sodemo]

I think he's right.

[Logrence]

But it's the tread rather than the mixture of the rubber that makes the difference, surely.

[Adam43]

FIA rules: 2005 spoting regulations.

During the Event no driver may use more than four sets of dry-weather tyres, four sets of wet weather tyres and three sets of extreme-weather tyres.

It seems there is a limitation on wets too.

Wets generally wear much less than drys because they run cooler. However a wet on a dry track can be destroyed very quickly (it is quite a soft compound), so the drivers will have to be careful during practice if it is wet.

What Jenson said (Autosport Christmas edition) is that any reduction in tread will mean there is more chance of aqua-planing.

Maybe it'll force the tyre manufacturers to go for a more conservative wet tyre too (in terms of compound)? Or maybe they'll keep a similar tyre and risk it. After all in wet practice the drivers hardly run and GP weekends are very unusually wet all the time.

Not ideal and I wonder how it will pan out and whether it will be an issue.

[ASCII Man]

Originally Posted by Logrence

But it's the tread rather than the mixture of the rubber that makes the difference, surely.

Ofcourse not, full wets are of little use if they can't heat up properly due to the harder compound...

[Knowlesy]

Could this new tyre rule equalise the wets more (Michelin vs. Bridgestone) or will we end up with a massively dominant tyre supplier in wet conditions?

Should be interesting. Then again, when does it ever rain during GP weekends these days?

[Bellof]

it will be interesting indeed to watch a race with changing conditions.
maybe then will max realise that he screwed up again (like in brasil '03)

[Adam43]

I think that if there is a problem it will come when there isn't changing conditions - i.e. it rains all the weekend so that they use the same (wet) tyres all the time.

[Logrence]

Originally Posted by ASCII Man

Ofcourse not, full wets are of little use if they can't heat up properly due to the harder compound...

But that's a fault of the tyre manufacturers - they aren't supposed to boil the water off the track anyway...

My point is that it's dangerous running the wrong tread in the wet, hard compound rain tyres are merely slow.