In many years and many races, I have seen a lot of disputes between tire suppliers and teams, and also between teams and riders. I also experienced some live, like in Spa in 2015, in Austria the following year and then again in Silverstone in the following season. I can guarantee that when a tire bursts there are moments of tension, because those who made it don’t take the blame and those who took it to the track, perhaps keeping it to the limit of wear, not even. I do not remember, however, many cases like the one today in Turkey, in which Mario Pitone Isola came out on live TV to say that Pirelli had warned the teams – in particular those with the best placed cars – that with only one set of intermediates they would not be able to finish the race. That, in a nutshell, was an alarm. And the images of the camera, which mercilessly showed worn treads to the limit of the canvases, testify that it was not an unfounded alarm. It is true that Ocon managed to see the finish line by emulating Mika Salo’s exploit in Munich ’97 (even there in the wet, but also with the difficulty of not refueling), but not with the same pace as the treads. Therefore it seems legitimate to ask what would have happened if a Hamilton oa Leclerca black donut had left in their risk challenge. With the “wet race”To point out the regulatory need for a tire change, Mercedes and Ferrari, with their respective drivers, have considered the extreme option. The first to approach Verstappen in the world race, the second to try to put an end to a streak of non-victories that has now lasted for more than two years.
58 laps worth of wear 😮@OconEsteban took his tires to the limit 🔎#TurkishGP 🇹🇷 # F1 pic.twitter.com/Vzg7Felw2C
– Formula 1 (@ F1) October 10, 2021
Just one consideration: if you take a tread to the limit of thinning, the risk you run is not just that of losing points or valuable results. In Formula 1, and in life in general, there is no guarantee that no one will get hurt. At the end of the day, the risk didn’t even pay off. Indeed, the out-of-time pit-stop deprived Lewis of a better position and Charles of a podium that now seemed to be in the safe. I don’t want to give moral lessons, it is always difficult – or too easy – to explain, afterwards, what had to be done. Quite simply, I remain of the idea that this generation of tires was not designed to last almost sixty laps on a track with strong lateral acceleration, albeit mitigated by the lower speed due to rain. Basically, I believe that the mandatory parking rule today should be applied regardless of weather conditions and compounds. There is a lot of attention, even too much attention if a driver, slipping on the track, involves another one and ends up on him: so why not think about what could happen for a sudden “dechappage”? Another question: in cases like these, is it right that the man behind the wheel has the last word? Some time ago, the Ferrari garage communicated to the driver the “tire phase”, Which is the state in which his tires were. This because, while ‘feeling’ the grip, the driver sometimes struggles to visually realize the level of wear of a tread. He sees the rear tires in the mirror, which often vibrates: the front tires protrude to the sides of the passenger compartment. If a communication from the track engineer had been studied, corroborated by the telemetry data, there was a reason.
Regardless of all this, once again the show was not lacking. And the Ferrari this time it was an active part, no ifs and buts. Apart from Montecarlo, I believe that the SF21 turned out to be in its best form, a bit like it had been seen, again on the wet asphalt, at Imola. Moreover, continuously and not just in flashes, as had happened too many other times this year. Leclerc’s race was solid, Sainz’s was rocky, able to recover from the back to eighth place (and it could have been more, without the kilometer pit stop). With all this, it seems a bit too optimistic to attribute credit to the new Power Unit, now available to both of us. Mind you, there are progress: the “colder” components of the hybrid part allow, for example, to use more closed bodies, reducing internal resistance. But in Ferrari they are the first to downsize the current scope of this advantage, which will be seen in full form in 2022. To appreciate is the fact that in Maranello they have decided to experiment with the new, unlike Mercedes which changed the engine for reliability reasons (and in fact he has ‘combined’ it with hybrid components already in use, which is impossible for Ferrari). Certainly, however, in Istanbul Park, with 16 degrees of temperature, cooling was not a capital problem. As well as it must be said that, in the wet, the role of the engine part is significantly reduced. And after all we have seen it from the swing of lap times (not only for Ferrari, mind you), with ‘delta’ of several seconds from one pass to another. I rather think that the Red, in Turkey, had found a good set-up compromise despite the choice – however right – of a lower downforce. But since you don’t just learn from mistakes, from this weekend there will be useful information for the next races. Maybe to play for a podium in a reasoned way and not an “all in” win at the poker table.