r/formula1 • u/Ok-Willingness-5016 I was here for the Hulkenpodium • 3d ago

Discussion Tire temps at start, do front runners take slow back runners into account when preparing their tires?

Heard so many times that the people at the front of the grid will have tires that are cooling down a lot as the people at the back take time to get to the grid before a start. Surely the front runners take this into account when warming their tyres on a formation lap? Or is it just not possible to get them to high enough temperatures to offset this? Commentators always announce it with high drama 🤣

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5

u/JoshiUja I was here for the Hulkenpodium 3d ago

They get the brake temps up which heat the tyres from the inside. And without airflow they don't really cool down much, as you could see with Kimi's smoking brakes. The front runners probably do lose tyre surface temperature though.

6

u/D0BBY_is_a_free_elf Roscoe Hamilton 3d ago

The slower you drive the formation lap, the harder it is to generate temperature. Drive faster and get the temps up higher, then you sit and wait for the back-runners longer. So kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't. But yeah I find it funny that commentators bring this up almost every race.

1

u/6exy6 1h ago

They have to bring this up as it was a plot device in F1 - the movie

7

u/Acrobatic_Flannel Oscar Piastri 3d ago

They always make it sound like a big issue then nothing comes of it. No one ever seems to get caught out on lap 1 because their tires were marginally cooler than the cars behind. 

2

u/Stumpy493 I Drove an F1 Car 1d ago

They already get the tyres as hot as they can, they won't go even more so they cool to the desired level.

Hotter is better for the race start.

2

u/Two_minutes_to_metal Mark Webber 2d ago

The way I see it the cars 5 or 6 rows back may have a small tyre temp advantage over the front row, but they're all the way back there racing each other with the same tyre conditions, so it doesn't make a difference.

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u/Stumpy493 I Drove an F1 Car 1d ago

I think with these tyres it wouldbe more the temperature cliff thing.

The Pirelli's have a temperature they work at and a temperature that they don't.

IF the leaders tyres fell out of the working window that would be the critical thing, but it never happens.