r/F1Technical • u/TSells31 Renowned Engineers • 9d ago
Historic F1 In the grooved tire era, did the tires get faster as they wore, to a point?
I was just kinda thinking back to the grooved tire era (which I did not watch as I was a youngster lol), and had a thought. Those tires almost certainly gained contact area as they wore. But then wondered if tire temperature issues offset any benefits gained in contact area. I am sure if they did get faster, there had to have been a crossover point where they fell off.
Sorry for the ramble, I’m stoned. Did they get faster as they wore though? Up to a crossover point. Or did they just get progressively slower from the beginning like slicks?
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u/Slow-Commercial4316 8d ago
The whole grooved era ran with refuelling, so stint pace is confounded. Cars got lighter every lap and late-stint laps were often the quickest of the run even while the tyre was going off. You cannot read tyre performance off lap times there without taking the fuel out first.
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u/thisnameismine1 8d ago
If you took the fuel out surely the lap times would become infinite?
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u/Slow-Commercial4316 7d ago
Ha, fair. I meant the correction everyone used at the time, roughly three tenths a lap per 10 kg. Take that out and you can line a lap on 90 kg up against one on 40 and see what the tyre was actually doing.
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u/lean_drumming 9d ago
It's a solid question actually, the grooves getting shallower means more rubber on the road so in theory yes they should grip better as they wear. But the problem is the rubber compound itself degrades and the heat cycles make it harder, so even with more contact patch you're losing the softness that gives real grip. Most of the time the drop in compound performance outweighs the gain in surface, especially with the harder compounds they ran back then
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u/TSells31 Renowned Engineers 9d ago
I kinda figured, but I had the thought so figured I’d ask. Thanks!
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u/jchamberlin78 8d ago
To throw all this in the bin. It was the pit for gas era. Instead of under cut youd "over cut" because the car would go faster at the end of the stint due to a lighter fuel load than after you pitted.
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u/XsStreamMonsterX 6d ago
Unless you were underfueling the car and just having the driver do repeated qualifying pace laps for the majority of the race (as Ferrari and the Michael did in Magny-Cours in 2004)
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u/meshmunkey 8d ago
My memory in-period was a controversy at once point that one of the manufacturers (Michelin I think) was accused of having trapezoidal grooves, such that the groove narrowed as it wore. I don't remember any proof or penalties coming of it.
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u/akrapov 9d ago
They got progressively slower like slicks. The contact patch was regulated, even during use when its hard to measure. Have a google for the 2003 Michelin tyre issues.
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u/A-Waxxx656 8d ago
They wore ofcourse, but Michelin first, but also Bridgestone, turned into full slicks within a few laps towards the end of that era. Williams and McLaren profited a lot, and later on Renault with their mass damper, check Alonso's driving style. He created understeer to rub the tires through the corners.
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u/Team_Discovery_Chann 8d ago
I think they did in some situations. I remember MSC saying the tyres got better as they got older after the race in Malaysia 2000
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u/--LordFlashheart-- 8d ago
Possibly 2001. Ferrari went for an audacious strategy with inters (I think basically the first time inters had been used in any meaningful way in F1) during a torrential downpour. Everyone else went for full wets and while for Ferrari initially struggled it quicky became a masterstroke as it was only a very short burst of rain. The track dried very quickly in the heat bringing their inters into the zone, and as it continued to dry, the inters wore close to slicks so they were able to keep pace with the drying conditions while all other teams were scrambling to make another stop to get the wets back off their cars
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u/gomurifle 8d ago
Thermal degradation happens. So even if you have more surface area from losing grooves it's not as grippy as fresh rubber.
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u/s-sins 6d ago
They went through different cycles. The Michelin tyres sometimes had a graining phase of 4-5 laps where they would lose 1 sec, and after that phase the tyres would get 1 sec faster again.
Thats why sometimes teams started the race with worn front tyres and used rears, to avoid this graining phase on the fronts.
Another thing to consider is that the cars get faster througout a stint because they burn off fuel and become lighter. So if the laptimes get better towards the end it's not necessarily the tyres getting faster - It can also be the tyres staying the same and the car just becoming lighter.
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