Ed_Severson
06-20-05, 10:12 PM
In another thread, an astute poster professed his own opinion that major racing series should have no more than one supplier of racing tires. This is an opinion that I happen to share, and has also been vocalized by none other than Mario Andretti.
In the wake of the Michelin fiasco at the USGP and the FIA's recent announcement that they are considering a sole tyre supplier beyond 2007, I thought it might be interesting to have some discussion on the issue.
Below is the full text of Mario's column on the subject, which appeared in the August/September 2000 issue of Champ Car Magazine.
"Throughout my career, I have believed the technical competition between manufacturers is one of the driving forces in racing. Whether it's engines, chassis, spark plugs, brakes ... you name it, competition not only improves the breed, it brings new people and new businesses into the sport, and it adds interest for the fans.
The only area where I discourage competition is tires. The experience over the years for any sanctioning body, let it be Formula 1, CART, or NASCAR, is that no other element can throw off the competitive balance more than a tire war.
In a tire war, two things happen: 1. If the tires you're on have been notoriously inferior, you're always going to use that as an excuse. 2. You could have the greatest car in the world on a particular day, but if you're on the wrong tires you're not going to win.
So, a tire war has all the elements of total disruption, while a "uni-tire" series is more stable. The FedEx Championship Series is a case in point.
As we know, after a long period when Goodyear was the only company supplying Champ Car tires, Firestone re-entered the sport in 1995. A lot of good came from the competition, including advances in the tires themselves and the advertising dollars Firestone and Goodyear invested in the sport to take advantage of their racing programs.
But we also saw the negatives. When the teams running on Goodyear gradually came to be at a disadvantage, that, naturally, sent even more teams Firestone's way, which only made the situation worse.
The thing to remember is that the tire is a huge performance element. When we were developing the first modern tires in the '60s, we had huge swings of progress from test to test. We were gaining so much speed that we didn't see the need to improve the rest of the equipment. We'd say, 'Man, I got the same car as last year -- with a new paint job -- and here I am at Indy and I'm 5 mph faster! We don't need another car ....'
The fact is, the tires were such a big part of the performance that we didn't know what to do for the next car.
Now I look at Roger Penske and think, 'We'll probably never know how good the PC27 chassis was ....'
But it's not only that some teams suffered in the latest tire war. The quality of the competition was affected by the marbles produced by the soft tires. When you say 'marbles,' everybody thinks of street courses, but remember Indianapolis in '95? It has not been a problem in recent times to go off line at Indy, but that year three or four guys got sucked into the wall when they got out into the marbles.
Goodyear chose to withdraw from Champ Car racing after 1999. Now, I've raced on Firestones and Goodyears; I've won races on both and I respect both companies tremendously. But, I think CART is better off with a uni-tire series.
If you look at the races so far this year, be it on the ovals or a street circuit like Long Beach, marbles have not been a big issue. As we come to the portion of the schedule dominated by road and street courses, I think the competition will benefit from the reduced amount of marbles.
Already nearly every combination of chassis and engines has won races and poles. To me that's important because, in my opinion, the very strength of our series is the technical side. It's the strongest criteria our series has to offer vs. any other series in the United States.
What do you think keeps Ford, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota in there? They're learning. In spite of stringent rules and limitations in areas like mechanical valve systems, they're running incredible rpms. In turn, they're learning to make things more and more efficient, which is very beneficial in developing their production engines.
Today, governments all over the world are mandating more efficient engines yielding the best fuel consumption with the least emissions. All of this is learned by pushing the envelope in a competitive arena such as CART. That's the beauty of it, and it's important that they be able to compete on a level playing field.
This is the area that's really interesting: We have all these engines performing within 0.2 sec a lap in a given chassis. But the tires make a much bigger difference: a second, second-and-a-half difference. In terms of the overall picture, a tire war throws everything out of kilter.
The facts speak for themselves. We saw what was happening in NASCAR when Hoosier came in. NASCAR, I think, saw the problem and fixed it. F1 and CART still haven't found a way of making sure it doesn't happen again. In F1, they're talking about Michelin coming back ... yikes!
It doesn't matter if CART is with Firestone or Goodyear as long as there's just one tire company. To its credit, CART has never shied away from adopting rules and procedures from other sanctioning bodies if they've proven effective. CART already has an agreement with Firestone to be the official tire of the FedEx Series. Perhaps it's time for CART to look at NASCAR's uni-tire program and consider doing something similar."
Thoughts, anyone?
In the wake of the Michelin fiasco at the USGP and the FIA's recent announcement that they are considering a sole tyre supplier beyond 2007, I thought it might be interesting to have some discussion on the issue.
Below is the full text of Mario's column on the subject, which appeared in the August/September 2000 issue of Champ Car Magazine.
"Throughout my career, I have believed the technical competition between manufacturers is one of the driving forces in racing. Whether it's engines, chassis, spark plugs, brakes ... you name it, competition not only improves the breed, it brings new people and new businesses into the sport, and it adds interest for the fans.
The only area where I discourage competition is tires. The experience over the years for any sanctioning body, let it be Formula 1, CART, or NASCAR, is that no other element can throw off the competitive balance more than a tire war.
In a tire war, two things happen: 1. If the tires you're on have been notoriously inferior, you're always going to use that as an excuse. 2. You could have the greatest car in the world on a particular day, but if you're on the wrong tires you're not going to win.
So, a tire war has all the elements of total disruption, while a "uni-tire" series is more stable. The FedEx Championship Series is a case in point.
As we know, after a long period when Goodyear was the only company supplying Champ Car tires, Firestone re-entered the sport in 1995. A lot of good came from the competition, including advances in the tires themselves and the advertising dollars Firestone and Goodyear invested in the sport to take advantage of their racing programs.
But we also saw the negatives. When the teams running on Goodyear gradually came to be at a disadvantage, that, naturally, sent even more teams Firestone's way, which only made the situation worse.
The thing to remember is that the tire is a huge performance element. When we were developing the first modern tires in the '60s, we had huge swings of progress from test to test. We were gaining so much speed that we didn't see the need to improve the rest of the equipment. We'd say, 'Man, I got the same car as last year -- with a new paint job -- and here I am at Indy and I'm 5 mph faster! We don't need another car ....'
The fact is, the tires were such a big part of the performance that we didn't know what to do for the next car.
Now I look at Roger Penske and think, 'We'll probably never know how good the PC27 chassis was ....'
But it's not only that some teams suffered in the latest tire war. The quality of the competition was affected by the marbles produced by the soft tires. When you say 'marbles,' everybody thinks of street courses, but remember Indianapolis in '95? It has not been a problem in recent times to go off line at Indy, but that year three or four guys got sucked into the wall when they got out into the marbles.
Goodyear chose to withdraw from Champ Car racing after 1999. Now, I've raced on Firestones and Goodyears; I've won races on both and I respect both companies tremendously. But, I think CART is better off with a uni-tire series.
If you look at the races so far this year, be it on the ovals or a street circuit like Long Beach, marbles have not been a big issue. As we come to the portion of the schedule dominated by road and street courses, I think the competition will benefit from the reduced amount of marbles.
Already nearly every combination of chassis and engines has won races and poles. To me that's important because, in my opinion, the very strength of our series is the technical side. It's the strongest criteria our series has to offer vs. any other series in the United States.
What do you think keeps Ford, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota in there? They're learning. In spite of stringent rules and limitations in areas like mechanical valve systems, they're running incredible rpms. In turn, they're learning to make things more and more efficient, which is very beneficial in developing their production engines.
Today, governments all over the world are mandating more efficient engines yielding the best fuel consumption with the least emissions. All of this is learned by pushing the envelope in a competitive arena such as CART. That's the beauty of it, and it's important that they be able to compete on a level playing field.
This is the area that's really interesting: We have all these engines performing within 0.2 sec a lap in a given chassis. But the tires make a much bigger difference: a second, second-and-a-half difference. In terms of the overall picture, a tire war throws everything out of kilter.
The facts speak for themselves. We saw what was happening in NASCAR when Hoosier came in. NASCAR, I think, saw the problem and fixed it. F1 and CART still haven't found a way of making sure it doesn't happen again. In F1, they're talking about Michelin coming back ... yikes!
It doesn't matter if CART is with Firestone or Goodyear as long as there's just one tire company. To its credit, CART has never shied away from adopting rules and procedures from other sanctioning bodies if they've proven effective. CART already has an agreement with Firestone to be the official tire of the FedEx Series. Perhaps it's time for CART to look at NASCAR's uni-tire program and consider doing something similar."
Thoughts, anyone?