Now I'm no engineer, but I'd like to ask some of you here on the boards some questions.

This is concerning Tires. More specifically Goodyear. (Mods please let this go, I don't think it has anything to do about the Tony Stewart fiasco at Atlanta)

I am a fan of both Formula 1 and Nascar, and when I say a fan I mean I watch every race (well, as much Nascar as I can, but EVERY F1 race). One thing that I can not help but notice is the obscene amount of tire failures that occur in Nascar. I don't really think that obscene is too strong a word here either.

I have no stats to back up my claim, I wish I did, so if any of you out there can find some I'd be interested in seeing what they are. What I'm looking for is a sort of crash database where racing accidents are recorded and the cause is recorded as well. My theory is that accidents caused by tire failure will be extremely higher in the Nascar series (all of them) because of the poor tires that are supplied to the teams. I'm by no means only interested in F1 and Nascar. If this mythical database I'm looking for does exist and have other series in it so be it.

My point is this. How much stress is a Formula 1 tire put through? How much stress is a Nascar tire put through? I'm no rocket scientist here, but I have got to believe that the F1 tire is put through a hell of alot more stress and cornering G's than your typical Nascar tire, yet they rarely seem to fail. Look at the abuse that Lewis Hamilton put his Bridgestones through at China last year, yet the tire did not fail. Now take a look at the Goodyears that are supplied to Nascar. At least one car per race, many times more, is taken out of contention early through no fault of their own because of a blown tire.

If Bridgestone can build a good tire, why the can't Goodyear?

PS One thing to remember. There is no such thing as a COT. There is no Car of Tomorrow anymore.

Don't know about any data base but....a tire on the NASCAR cars is 12" wide vs. 14 and 15 inches front and rear respectivly for F1. Add that fact to the weight of a NASCAR car is like 2000 pounds more than an F1 car. In NASCAR they only really ever turn left so the right side tires take a beating at every turn where in F1 it equals out more or less. Considering these points it's easy to see that the NASCAR tire (especially the right side tires) take quite a beating.

I believe stock cars put high loads on their tires as well due to banking and the weight of the car. Especially the right front tire. Thats why they change them as much as they can. Formula One had more blowouts when their was a tire war. Remember Kimi at the Nurburgring and Ralf Schumacher at Indianapolis. At Indy that year (2005) the Michelin teams had to pull out and the race was a farce. Still I think Bridgestone/Firestone makes the best race tire. How often do you see a blowout on an Indycar. Now that Michelin is gone from F1, you probably won't see any blowouts there either. Tire wars create unsafe tires. Nascar knows this, because of the tire war between Goodyear and Hoosier in the past. Softer tires give better performance. I think this weekends issues at Atlanta will probably be an isolated incident. Hopefully Goodyear will get it sorted out.

It might also have to do with the probability of it happening in NASCAR being higher plus the running on ovals. NASCAR has 43 cars running 36 races between 250 and 600 miles in length and Formula One has 22 cars running 19 races all around 190 miles.

Plus, the chance of running over some debris from another car. I think you very seldom see banging and bumping in F1. Whereas, in NASCAR, it is the normal procedure of the race.

I guess TOny woulf have tires that fail and blow often, instead of a hard tire.

SlyFoxx - 11 March 2008 01:39 PM

Don't know about any data base but....a tire on the NASCAR cars is 12" wide vs. 14 and 15 inches front and rear respectivly for F1. Add that fact to the weight of a NASCAR car is like 2000 pounds more than an F1 car. In NASCAR they only really ever turn left so the right side tires take a beating at every turn where in F1 it equals out more or less. Considering these points it's easy to see that the NASCAR tire (especially the right side tires) take quite a beating.

Don't forget that some of the teams run ridiculous amounts of camber in the RF, as that was what you use to turn the cars (now it's the springs in the RR). When a tire runs on only a sliver of it's surface on the straights, you're gonna have heat buildup at that point and cause blisters, not to mention wearing that sliver down to the cords.

The tires at Atlanta were very conservative for one reason or another. Dale Jr said that after 30 laps, you can still see the center mold thingie, so that gives you an idea of how hard the tire was. When a tire is that hard, it's obviously gonna have little to no grip. I feel that tire tests are a bit of a gamble, as the conditions for the race can be vastly different that what the conditions were in testing, so it's just a matter of coming up with a compromise compound and hope it works. It didn't at Atlanta, so I hope that Goodyear would make the tire softer.

While I'm relatively new to F1, I would think that camber isn't much of an issue for them. There might be some slight camber, but not like what we see in NASCAR. Most of an F1 car's grip is from the insane amounts of downforce produced by their wings and winglets. Being lighter helps reduce the stress on the tires, but the stress is there, but equally distributed to all four tires, while the stress is on either the RF or RR, making a blowout more probable in NASCAR than F1. Tire failures are rare in F1, but they do happen (see Hamilton where his tire delaminated, can't remember what track it was, though).

Of course, if NASCAR would knock off some weight from the cars, it might ease some of the stress on the tires and prevent the teams from using the insane amounts of camber for the RF or driving the RR into the track with the springs. I mean, what car today weights 3400lbs? That's the only change I want with the COT.

Someone said in response to the tire BS at Atlanta this weekend that it is a byproduct of the car.

The new car has less downforce than the old car, hence the tire is not "pushed" into the racing surface as much also reducing grip. That makes sense to me, but seeing as Nascar is being almost Hitler-like with what the teams can and can not do to the car I don't see much changing on that front. And I hope you're right NAAC5 when you say it will hopefully be an isolated incident. Because if I have to watch another race like Atlanta again, I may not watch much longer.

I can understand the point that there are only 22 F1 cars on the track per race weekend versus 43 for Nascar. A fact that would most definately skew the statistics.

But at the same time, a F1 car is being pushed into the track by over 3000 lbs of downforce, and cornering at some tracks upwards of 5-6G's (Eau Rouge @ Spa). So in essence that tire is putting up with the same, if not more wieght than a Nascar race car is, and it is cornering at much higher G loads.

I think that tire wars are rubbish myself and do not wish to see one in Nascar. I however would like to see a race that is decided by the drivers/teams as opposed to the tire supplier. Once Michelin left F1, that was what we got. But with the constant tire failures in Nascar it's almost a roll of the dice to see if you're going to finish the race or not. It simply should not be like that, and forcing Goodyear to come up with a tire for that disgrace of a race car isn't fair to them. However, this is something I've been noticing for the better part of two years. I don't have any data to back up my claims, but it's one of those things that strikes me as out of the ordinary.

The easy reply is that they're worlds apart. F1 tires aren't totally slick, they do have small groves cut in them, and they also have the ability to run rain/intermediate variants, as they continue to race during wet conditions. I think Nascar tire failures have a few different causes that are not entirely all due to poor design and manufacture. I think Nascar tracks tend to have a bit more debris on them than an F1 course. Nascars having fenders don't help either, as if you bend one out of shape you can rub and lose the tire.

I think, though, that they are put under different stresses and strains. Nascars run on banked tracks, something F1 cars aren't exactly good at. Remember F1 at Indy a few years back, where a manufacturor pulled the plug on the teams running their tires? Well, that was because they were afraid of blowout in the high speed banked corner they run there. I think F1 tires weren't designed to take such turns. Video evidence is online, search ralf schumacher and indy. He experienced a sudden blowout in practice at that corner and crashed pretty hard. I suspect somewhere online someone can dig up the full technical info?

Fahrenheit - 11 March 2008 02:25 PM

But at the same time, a F1 car is being pushed into the track by over 3000 lbs of downforce, and cornering at some tracks upwards of 5-6G's (Eau Rouge @ Spa). So in essence that tire is putting up with the same, if not more wieght than a Nascar race car is, and it is cornering at much higher G loads.

If you do the math, an F1 car at full speed making a 5g corner has very similar loadings as a NASCAR race car on a 24* banking at 2g. Side force for F1 approx 6665Lbs. for NASCAR approx 6035Lbs. Down pressure for F1 approx 4000Lbs. for NASCAR approx 5000Lbs.

One big difference, An F1 car going thru Eau Rouge experiences that load for 2-3 seconds of a 1:40+ lap. NASCAR cars have those loads for 1/2 of the lap and mostly on one tire.

Mike

RCMike - 11 March 2008 02:57 PM

Fahrenheit - 11 March 2008 02:25 PM

But at the same time, a F1 car is being pushed into the track by over 3000 lbs of downforce, and cornering at some tracks upwards of 5-6G's (Eau Rouge @ Spa). So in essence that tire is putting up with the same, if not more wieght than a Nascar race car is, and it is cornering at much higher G loads.

If you do the math, an F1 car at full speed making a 5g corner has very similar loadings as a NASCAR race car on a 24* banking at 2g. Side force for F1 approx 6665Lbs. for NASCAR approx 6035Lbs. Down pressure for F1 approx 4000Lbs. for NASCAR approx 5000Lbs.

One big difference, An F1 car going thru Eau Rouge experiences that load for 2-3 seconds of a 1:40+ lap. NASCAR cars have those loads for 1/2 of the lap and mostly on one tire.

Mike

MATH!!!!

Awesome, thanks Mike I was hoping someone would chime in with something like this. I'm a black and white type person. Grey areas scare me.