This is great news, but i wonder why they didn't have them ready for the 08 season, it would have been a great accessorie to the tc ban, no?
Is it too late to start testing them in preparation for 08? They didn't have much more time to prepare the control tyre iirc?!
I believe slicks and banning tyre warmers don't go together...
Not to mention, in 2003/2004/2005 Bridgestones tyres struggled a lot to get heat (we saw that in SC periods, where Michelin runners were stalling the guys on BS as much as possible) and that's with grooves. Just speculation on my part.
Now about next test using slicks, who is their source? I'm calling BS on that article.
Apparently the information comes from team insiders, several of the most renowned news agencies are reporting this, so its probably not BS. The reason is that they want data on slicks before they start constructing the 09 cars.
I don´t think the teams will hide something, FIA has a clue (I guess) about how fust the cars will be with the slicks on so the times can´t differ so much from their expectations....so no point there
ask, as I've never been one to think that slicks absolutely should make a comeback (wouldn't object to it either), what's the big deal? People everywhere seem to get a bit worked up over this and beyond shrugging my shoulders, I really haven't had the motivation to pitch in since there's really not that much to pitch as far as I'm concerned. A lot of slick-o-ramic posts to fork aside though, the theme propably running into a total of several gigabytes over hard-drives everywhere by now. (Pitch, fork, haha, I know the joke has bombed when one feels it necessary to offer a clarification. Sorry about that. But I found it slightly amusing, imagining a bunch of people looking all serious over their monitors looking at my posts going absolutely haywire. Pitchfork, hay-wire, haha. I'm out of control, soon it will be a veritable Sahara of desperately dry jokes. And only a fool puts sand in one's mouth anyway.) So is it history then, or aesthetics, or principle, or something else? The slicks, I mean.
I just got to thinking that perhaps the slicks will be narrower so the contact patch area stays the same. Or perhaps the compound will be made less grippy. I kinda remember the grooves were introduced with the old F1 sales adages sprinkled with "increased overtaking" phrases. Rather generously so. A lot of good that did then. Perhaps a slick will be a bit more draggy, perhaps a bit less, anyone know? Perhaps it's emotional i.e. "slickness" is more F1-like than "grooviness". I have a more of an issue with the control tyre than the grooves, but don't quite know how the competition could be kept in check, safety-wise. Set certain criteria for the tyre construction?
But slicks then, I guess I'm looking for an argument that'd win me over. Not too seriously, don't think too hard. If you truly support them, you should know already.
