Pirelli "Degrading"

Umm, no. I already knew about heat cycling, but I expect there are others.

Now you're aware of delamination versus explosion?

So far, it is thought that the tyres blew out because they got cut up on the kerbs.

Why would the kerbs have sharp bits in them? Surely not by design?

There is still an impact on the side wall when you run over a kerb, and on a right hand circuit there may to be more LH impacts when running wide.

But F1 drivers are always running over the kerbs - it doesn't normally cause a problem with the tyres ....

There are kerbs and grass. They are taking utter liberties with the green painted bit of concrete that is technically "grass". It had 2 manhole covers in it for the drainage system. The ridges in the kerbs have sharp edges to the grass side and they are supposed to be what cut the tyres.

Serves them right.

Keep off the grass.

Check the video clip on this link, it explains the problem better than we can describe it.

It looks more like a track problem than a tyre problem!

Do all the circuits have the same discontinuities between the kerb and the concrete "grass"? You would not have 2-inch deep vertical grooves cut in the main black area of the track, so why have them in the area between the track and the grass?

I can understand that street circuits will have a 3 foot high concrete wall topped by a steel fence, but at least the the drivers can see that and will try to avoid running into it.

Indeed! If you wanted to design something to destroy a heavily loaded tyre subject to a lot of lateral G, you'd be hard pushed to improve on what they've got there.

Tim

Yeaah, but I'm not getting rid of my P6000s until they explode.

When a couple of commentators walked the corner where most of the problems happened, the kerbs seemed to be made up of tiles, with edges, but the camera can deceive..

Race track kerb on inside of corner or other places where it's possible to gain an advantage such as outside at entry and exit are made of concrete and have a surface that's supposed to deter them being driven on. The ripples can be round like over sized chocolate buttons or ribbed. The kerb at Silverstone is ribbed like a rumble strip, except the ribs are about 50cm instead of 10cm like on M-way.

The kerb on all tracks is painted RED and WHITE as a bloody big KEEP the F OFF message.

They not only did they not keep off they ran the inside wheel off the inside of it. Crossing or using the GREEN bits as track should lead to penalties being given for gaining or attempting to gain an unfair competitive advantage. The penalty was given by the tyre exploding. Now they are bleating that the penalty was a bit excessive.

Didums, KEEP OFF THE GRASS.

The kerb on outside of Mallory hairpin was a bit sharp edged. Broke my arm when I fell on it. In an Earlystocks race I had run out of brakes at the hairpin and was well on the grass. 3" more on the grass and I'd have been fine, it would have been my lid that hit the kerb and not my shoulder.

But the drivers, F1 team members and the FIA officials walking the track didn't spot any safety issues associated with the kerbs prior to the race which suggests that this track is no different to the rest.

The team bosses and the FIA seem to be bending over backwards to not blame the tyre manufacturer. They know that they don't have a fall back if Pirelli soon pull out of F1 because of bad publicity and falling sales for the family car market.

How come other tyre makers aren't having the same problem or do they all use Pirelli?..

In message , tony sayer writes

Current regulations mandate one supplier. Pirelli have the current contract.

At least you came off better than Florian Camathius