Carlos Sainz Jnr, McLaren, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, 2019

F1 right to drop “extremely dangerous” ban on tyre warmers – Sainz

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In the round-up: Carlos Sainz Jnr is pleased a planned ban on tyre warmers in the 2021 F1 season has been dropped by the sport.

What they say

Sainz said the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association had resisted plans to prevent teams pre-heating tyres.

I think [the] GPDA has achieved a few important steps. One of them was tyre blankets. People wanted to have no tyre blankets in ’21. We completely opposed because we saw it as an extremely dangerous situation. And it’s not happening anymore.

There’s a couple of other cases that we fight very hard for that are also probably not happening. And it means people are listening to drivers and to the GPDA.

Just don’t forget that what we want is the best for the sport and I think we know more than anyone else what we need to follow another car or what we need to make this sport more of a sport and more of a better show also.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Should F1 reduce its contribution to CO2 emissions by encouraging fans not to drive to circuits?

I’ve never been to a Grand Prix, but the impression I get is the average spectator or employee has to make their own way to the grand prix. Those thousands of people would easily use more fuel than all of the F1 cars would use for the entire weekend. Why not put on a decent bus or train service from nearby cities and towns to the grand prix so people can use the public transport instead of travelling to the event in their car?

Also, the roads should be adjusted to minimise queues because vehicle engines idling wastes fuel.
Stephen Crowsen (@Drycrust)

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On this day in F1

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21 comments on “F1 right to drop “extremely dangerous” ban on tyre warmers – Sainz”

  1. Other series, including Indycar, seem to cope just fine without using tire warmers, so I can’t see that getting rid of them would create “an extremely dangerous situation”. It would just be something new for the drivers to deal with and get used to. I expect they’d soon come to grips (sorry!) with it. That said, if the idea of banning them was simply for cost cutting purposes, I’m sure the blankets are a mere drop in the bucket cost-wise when considering all the other garage kit. No big reason not to continue with them I suppose.

    1. @schooner, part of it is supposedly a cost cutting measure, though as you point out, the relative cost of the tyre blankets is actually pretty negligible in the grand scale of things (I recall hearing a figure of around £100,000 for the tyre warming equipment).

      As a piece of technology, tyre blankets are hardly new – they’ve been in use since at least 1985 in F1 (it was part of the reason why Senna got so many pole positions whilst at Lotus) – nor are they exactly that complex or even that much of an expense. As a cost saving measure, therefore, it is a rather small scale effort and one that is probably not really saving all that much in the grand scheme of things.

      1. It may be a small savings, but it’s a savings nonetheless. Cutting out the small expenses where possible will add up and be much easier than trying to take several millions of expenditures out of the equation in one go.

  2. Please Lewis, I support your efforts on the environment but don’t go totally vegan loopy. Leather is a byproduct of meat production, part of the philosophy of using every part of an animal we eat, waste not want not. The alternatives to leather are either plastics, cotton or wool. Plastics, bad, cotton, not good, and wool is an animal product from animals that are going to die, do we waste their meat and skin just to feel virtuous ?

    1. do we waste their meat and skin just to feel virtuous ?

      Good point @hohum.

      PS I never click on The Sun (etc) links, but for once the headline makes sense.

    2. John Ballantyne
      26th October 2019, 9:29

      Sheep don’t die to give wool!

      1. Doesn’t matter to vegans I know, it’s still enslavement as they can’t consent

  3. Extremely dangerous without tire blankets? Please Carlos! Most drivers in other series can manage just fine without them, except you primadonnas. Also there’s that ridiculous idea again that the drivers have the monopoly to decide what’s best for F1. It’s been proven many times in the past that sometimes what the drivers say is best for the sport is actually worse. And so is it with this blanket ban which could have spiced up a show a bit. Admit it that you don’t want to work harder and be done with it. My respect for Sainz Jr has gone down a significant amount…

    1. I always thought they were the best 20 drivers in the world. This leads to believe the F2 are the biggest starts in racing.

    2. If your respect for Sainz has diminished, you should apply thay reasoning to the whole field since its the GDPA not Sainz who lobbies the change.

    3. Danferous with THESE tyres, which are rubbish

  4. Worth pointing out that Pirelli were also pushing hard to keep the tyre blankets as they felt banning them would make developing the 2021 tyres harder since they would lose the reference from the existing tyres.

    It’s not as simple a thing as just taking the blankets away as the tyres themselves also need to be designed around been pre-heated or not. The current tyres with no blankets would likely be dangerous as there designed to leave the garage at a certain temperature which don’t forget also affects the pressures. Pirelli could design tyres around no blankets but need data to do so safely and with the 2021 rule changes as well as totally new tyres they wouldn’t have any data to help them which is why they were against the ban for 2021.

    As to other series like Indycar been fine, Again the tyres are designed around not having the warmers but there also totally different cars that work tyres in totally different ways so i don’t necessarily think that a direct comparison works. It’s like saying that F1 would be fine using treaded tyres because Formula Ford’s manage to, Different things.

    1. F1 used treaded tyres.
      Also, the analogy only works if Formula Ford is closer to F1 in speed.

  5. What a shame, it is fine in super formula.

  6. The COTD has some interesting and valid points with which I share the same views.

  7. Oh yes, the extremely dangerous ban on tyre blankets. I remember seeing similar comments the traction control was outlawed, with some drivers saying that it will be very dangerous and cars will be spinning everywhere.

    1. I take it you haven’t been watching Vettel’s last few seasons ;)

  8. Re COTD: I’ve been to Melbourne and Budapest and they both have transport to the track which is free for ticket holders.

    For Melbourne they take you right from the CBD, and in Budapest you have to pay (very little) for a train to just outside the city where they run free shuttle buses.

    Lots of people still drive to both but I suspect most use mass transit.

  9. As many have pointed out, in having tyre pre-warmers, F1 is an exception rather than the norm.
    It means huge new overtaking opportunities for other drivers until tyres have warmed up. More skill needed to reduce the disadvantage on cold tyres, new techniques in warming up tyres quickly on track without ruining them.
    Initially increased braking zones, lower cornering speeds, Different rubber with performance characteristics perhaps closer to those used in other major series.

    An opportunity for drivers to show either their skills, or their inability to adapt.

    No, we should do away with tyre warmers! Let more skill be required!

  10. The way I see it, F1 would be taking a risk ignoring the drivers and banning tyre warmers. If a driver were injured or even killed, and the incident were to be blamed on the lack of tyre warmers, the sport would be slaughtered for it.
    In the wake of Jules Bianchi’s death, an incident that would have been avoided had common sense been used, this decision is a sensible one to make. Sainz is quite right. Only the drivers truly understand what it is like to drive these cars, and to drive them on the limit. If we ignore these guys were might aswell go back to the days of hay bale’s for barriers and leather helmets.

  11. Magnus Rubensson (@)
    26th October 2019, 15:10

    I’ll go one better than taking public transport to an F1 race. I’ll stay home!

Comments are closed.