2020 Belgian Grand Prix - Spa-Francorchamps, August 28 - 30

[ENGINE TUNER]

I hope for light rain just enough to force them to inters because otherwise they will go around behind SC and Hamilton crying on the radio for the SC to go faster. Best scenario would be standing start on inters on a drying track, then rain again halfway drying on the last laps with people going on slicks right at the end (2008 maybe?)

Yes it is difficult because pirelli are incompetent. According to their own numbers their full wet tire move only a little bit more water than the 2010 Bridgestone INTERS at full speed. Listen to Rosberg's stunning remarks about how poor the pirelli west are in the brazil 2016 race. And NOBODY ever asked them to make "degrading" wet tire, they just can't do better.

[Unc1eM0nty]

I believe its 3 sets of each (wet and inter)

4 sets of intermediates and 3 sets of full wets, plus one additional set of inters for practice only, if it's wet

They'll want to keep two new sets of each for the race, plus qually, that doesn't leave them much freedom for practice

[falonso81]

I hope for light rain just enough to force them to inters because otherwise they will go around behind SC and Hamilton crying on the radio for the SC to go faster. Best scenario would be standing start on inters on a drying track, then rain again halfway drying on the last laps with people going on slicks right at the end (2008 maybe?)

Yes it is difficult because pirelli are incompetent. According to their own numbers their full wet tire move only a little bit more water than the 2010 Bridgestone INTERS at full speed. Listen to Rosberg's stunning remarks about how poor the pirelli west are in the brazil 2016 race. And NOBODY ever asked them to make "degrading" wet tire, they just can't do better.

I would not say they are incompetent, its just that they know FIA is very strict as far as safety goes regarding wet running, so they dont bother a lot with developing proper wet tyres. At least thats what i am getting.

[Ringleheim]

I have a feeling this year's Ferrari is going to get slaughtered on a monster track like Spa.

Prediction: Hamilton wins.

[PlatinumZealot]

I hope for light rain just enough to force them to inters because otherwise they will go around behind SC and Hamilton crying on the radio for the SC to go faster. Best scenario would be standing start on inters on a drying track, then rain again halfway drying on the last laps with people going on slicks right at the end (2008 maybe?)

Yes it is difficult because pirelli are incompetent. According to their own numbers their full wet tire move only a little bit more water than the 2010 Bridgestone INTERS at full speed. Listen to Rosberg's stunning remarks about how poor the pirelli west are in the brazil 2016 race. And NOBODY ever asked them to make "degrading" wet tire, they just can't do better.

Bridgestone wet tyre water displacment - 34 liters per second

Bridgestone extreme wet tyre water displacement - 62 liters per second

I cant find the figures for the intermediates though.

[ENGINE TUNER]

I hope for light rain just enough to force them to inters because otherwise they will go around behind SC and Hamilton crying on the radio for the SC to go faster. Best scenario would be standing start on inters on a drying track, then rain again halfway drying on the last laps with people going on slicks right at the end (2008 maybe?)

Yes it is difficult because pirelli are incompetent. According to their own numbers their full wet tire move only a little bit more water than the 2010 Bridgestone INTERS at full speed. Listen to Rosberg's stunning remarks about how poor the pirelli west are in the brazil 2016 race. And NOBODY ever asked them to make "degrading" wet tire, they just can't do better.

I would not say they are incompetent, its just that they know FIA is very strict as far as safety goes regarding wet running, so they dont bother a lot with developing proper wet tyres. At least thats what i am getting.

Pirelli are incompetent
The FIA are forced to be extra vigilant in regards to wet weather safety because the pirelli wet tires are terrible. Listen to the Rosberg interview during or after the 2016 Brazilian gp, he says in no uncertain terms that the pirelli wet weather tires are far worse than what Bridgestone provided.
You have got it backwards.

[ENGINE TUNER]

I hope for light rain just enough to force them to inters because otherwise they will go around behind SC and Hamilton crying on the radio for the SC to go faster. Best scenario would be standing start on inters on a drying track, then rain again halfway drying on the last laps with people going on slicks right at the end (2008 maybe?)

Yes it is difficult because pirelli are incompetent. According to their own numbers their full wet tire move only a little bit more water than the 2010 Bridgestone INTERS at full speed. Listen to Rosberg's stunning remarks about how poor the pirelli west are in the brazil 2016 race. And NOBODY ever asked them to make "degrading" wet tire, they just can't do better.

Bridgestone wet tyre water displacment - 34 liters per second

Bridgestone extreme wet tyre water displacement - 62 liters per second

I cant find the figures for the intermediates though.

Pirelli claim inters 30L/s @ 300kph
Full wet 85L/s @300kph
https://www.pirelli.com/tires/en-us/motorsport/f1/tires
But most of their claims are false.

Do you have a source for your numbers?
It's hard to compare without knowing the test speeds.

I remember Bridgestone claim 65L/s for their inters, but I don't know where we can find such old info.

[ispano6]

FIA are incompetent in not allowing PU development and trying to lock in performance. UTTER WASTE OF DEVELOPMENT COSTS.

[ENGINE TUNER]

FIA are incompetent in not allowing PU development and trying to lock in performance. UTTER WASTE OF DEVELOPMENT COSTS.

PU development is allowed, and the PU manufactures called or a freeze ahead of new formula being introduced for 2025. Also, THERE IS A PANDEMIC, revenue and profits are down considerably. The FIA are not the prime movers when it comes to regulations, especially the PU regulations. The FIA are incompetent in many ways, but not because of the recent PU regulations. Their continued use of launch ramps/huge curbs just off the racing surface is a real sign of incompetence.

[selvam_e2002]

The basic problem with FIA is, blocking all the development. In earlier, team can do n number of development they have dedicated test driver for each team to test the parts and the team also have dedicated race circuit to test it. Now all the development ban, the F1 race is more predictable. 2000 to 2004 Ferrari, 2005 and 2006 Renault, 2007,8,9 in different league. then 2010 to 2013 RB after that All mercedes.

It is very boring they need to lift the development ban.

see the team which are participating in F1. How may engine manufacture? Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault, Honda only 4.

in which Hass, Alfo tuni, AlfoRomeo, Rasingpoint, Meclaren, all customer team using one of the above mentioned engine.

Lets think about, if bmw, Proche, Ford, Chevrolet manufacturer supplying engine for those teams then think about it how the pecking order would be, how they use the technology compared to other teams... we will see some innovation and interesting race. However, FIA failing in this part and unable to bring those manufactures. They are failing again and again.

F1 for innovation and challenge.

[Moore77]

The basic problem with FIA is, blocking all the development. In earlier, team can do n number of development they have dedicated test driver for each team to test the parts and the team also have dedicated race circuit to test it. Now all the development ban, the F1 race is more predictable. 2000 to 2004 Ferrari, 2005 and 2006 Renault, 2007,8,9 in different league. then 2010 to 2013 RB after that All mercedes.

It is very boring they need to lift the development ban.

see the team which are participating in F1. How may engine manufacture? Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault, Honda only 4.

in which Hass, Alfo tuni, AlfoRomeo, Rasingpoint, Meclaren, all customer team using one of the above mentioned engine.

Lets think about, if bmw, Proche, Ford, Chevrolet manufacturer supplying engine for those teams then think about it how the pecking order would be, how they use the technology compared to other teams... we will see some innovation and interesting race. However, FIA failing in this part and unable to bring those manufactures. They are failing again and again.

F1 for innovation and challenge.

While no doubt that FIA are simply not upto the mark, there are a few things that one need to consider. To start with, this is the longest duration FIA has allowed Engine development, compared to previous editions of engine specification. Second one is, if there are more manufacturers, it's not going to be profitable for the manufacturer. All the R&D work that goes in, they make up the costs if they have more customers. That way, the R&D costs can be recovered, yielding to larger set of R&D work.

More manufacturers with little to no customers, is not a profitable place. If they can't recover their R&D expense, they spend less, meaning less innovation. Opening up development forever, is also not cost efficient as manufacturers have to transfer that cost to the customer teams, leading to increase in their spend. It's a vicious cycle of spending if the engine development is not frozen. If customer teams have to keep paying more, it wouldn't attract more teams to come to F1. If there are more Manufacturers with little customer base, it wouldn't attract Manufacturers to come in.

If they can't stop the development of the current generation engine now, they can't finalize the new specifications for 2025+ and then start the work on that front. Based on rumors from Luca Montezemolo, Mercedes is already working on their 2025 engine for the past couple of years.

[DChemTech]

The basic problem with FIA is, blocking all the development. In earlier, team can do n number of development they have dedicated test driver for each team to test the parts and the team also have dedicated race circuit to test it. Now all the development ban, the F1 race is more predictable. 2000 to 2004 Ferrari, 2005 and 2006 Renault, 2007,8,9 in different league. then 2010 to 2013 RB after that All mercedes.

It is very boring they need to lift the development ban.

see the team which are participating in F1. How may engine manufacture? Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault, Honda only 4.

in which Hass, Alfo tuni, AlfoRomeo, Rasingpoint, Meclaren, all customer team using one of the above mentioned engine.

Lets think about, if bmw, Proche, Ford, Chevrolet manufacturer supplying engine for those teams then think about it how the pecking order would be, how they use the technology compared to other teams... we will see some innovation and interesting race. However, FIA failing in this part and unable to bring those manufactures. They are failing again and again.

F1 for innovation and challenge.

While no doubt that FIA are simply not upto the mark, there are a few things that one need to consider. To start with, this is the longest duration FIA has allowed Engine development, compared to previous editions of engine specification. Second one is, if there are more manufacturers, it's not going to be profitable for the manufacturer. All the R&D work that goes in, they make up the costs if they have more customers. That way, the R&D costs can be recovered, yielding to larger set of R&D work.

More manufacturers with little to no customers, is not a profitable place. If they can't recover their R&D expense, they spend less, meaning less innovation. Opening up development forever, is also not cost efficient as manufacturers have to transfer that cost to the customer teams, leading to increase in their spend. It's a vicious cycle of spending if the engine development is not frozen. If customer teams have to keep paying more, it wouldn't attract more teams to come to F1. If there are more Manufacturers with little customer base, it wouldn't attract Manufacturers to come in.

If they can't stop the development of the current generation engine now, they can't finalize the new specifications for 2025+ and then start the work on that front. Based on rumors from Luca Montezemolo, Mercedes is already working on their 2025 engine for the past couple of years.

But from a sports perspective, the main issue (as with many team sports these days) is that highly uneven budgets make things predictable. Of course the correlation is not perfect, but there is a clear correlation between money invested and performance. Hence the importance of the budget cap. F1 should be an 'innovation sport', but then teams should actually compete on who can do the best innovation job with similar resources - not on who can just throw most money on track. I do hope that, once the budget cap is properly established, a next regulation change (2026 or so?) opens up things a bit more. It would be interesting to see how things would develop if all teams get a broader window to work in, with similar resources - would they come up with vastly different solutions, or all still converge to a single design philosophy?

[bosyber]

Yes it is difficult because pirelli are incompetent. According to their own numbers their full wet tire move only a little bit more water than the 2010 Bridgestone INTERS at full speed. Listen to Rosberg's stunning remarks about how poor the pirelli west are in the brazil 2016 race. And NOBODY ever asked them to make "degrading" wet tire, they just can't do better.

Bridgestone wet tyre water displacment - 34 liters per second

Bridgestone extreme wet tyre water displacement - 62 liters per second

I cant find the figures for the intermediates though.

Pirelli claim inters 30L/s @ 300kph
Full wet 85L/s @300kph
https://www.pirelli.com/tires/en-us/motorsport/f1/tires
But most of their claims are false.

Do you have a source for your numbers?
It's hard to compare without knowing the test speeds.

I remember Bridgestone claim 65L/s for their inters, but I don't know where we can find such old info.

Good questions, and sourced facts. Note that this displacement if for the current tyres, ie. wider bigger than the bridgestones, so they need more displacement to stop from aquaplaning (not doing the math, sorry).

[haza]

I have a feeling this year's Ferrari is going to get slaughtered on a monster track like Spa.

Prediction: Hamilton wins.

Can see this being like McHonda 2015 just getting swamped on the 2 long straights

[basti313]

I have a feeling this year's Ferrari is going to get slaughtered on a monster track like Spa.

Prediction: Hamilton wins.

Can see this being like McHonda 2015 just getting swamped on the 2 long straights

Well, they will run the Monza package. I rather see issues with the tires and Vettel struggling with the rear like crazy.

Hamilton wins? That is a bold prediction, who should see this coming?