Soft tyres, hard tyres

[Hugh Jarce]

Watching and lsitening to qualies yesterday, I noted the comments on the usage of soft and hard tyres

As it stands, no one appears to relish using the hard ones and is doing everything to limit the amount of time and laps spent on them.

Stategies are being planned around damage limitation on the time lost while using them.

It's like a certain shirt in my wardrobe - I only wear it when the rest are in the wash and there ain't any other options. I'm not keen on it but it gets a public airing only when circumstances demand.

My take is that the soft and hard compound during the race is a silly old sausage. Let's give them the option to use the fastest compound possible for a given track and conditions.

And, while we're at it - why not slicks (flame bait!)

Any thoughts?

[FPV GTHO]

I think theres the strong possibility that Bridgestones desire to remain "talked about" through the use of 2 compounds used in the race could end up turn negatively, as it seems the 2 selected compounds are never going to be close on any given circuit. Theres always going to be one thats completely unsuited to track conditions, which is sure to draw plenty of criticism through its use.

[Pingguest]

The current regulations are a logical consequence of the control tyre. Bridgestone wants us to keep spending attention to their products.

[duke_toaster]

Just c and p'ing some of the rules

Unless he has used wet or extreme-weather tyres during the race, each driver must use at least one set of each specification of dry-weather tyres during the race.

What if the race is red flagged on lap 1, and one car is on hards, do they have to use hards after the restart or may they use softs for the entire race?

[BootsOntheSide]

The desire to keep TV schedules running smoothly ensures that this is unlikely. A decapitated head on the start-finish straight would probably mean Safety Car now.

If teams only had to use one type of tyre, far more tyres would be wasted, so there are economic reasons for the soft/hard balance. The rules need tweaking though - Liuzzi switching to softs in the Safety Car period meant that he had no 'disadvantage' from the 'inferior' hards.

[Pingguest]

I think it would have been a better idea to have only compound per weekend.

[Inigo Montoya]

I think its intriguing to be able to see how the cars perform on two different compounds. I am sure it means compromises in design and setup as well. Doesn't bother me at all.