The Problem
Currently, in the first five races of the 2013 season, tyres have had the biggest impact on the outcome. Balancing the outright pace of the car with its ability to maintain its tyres has been massively important, and is a clear reason why drivers such as Kimi Raikkonen currently sits second in the drivers championship. His calm, calculated approach combined with a nicely balanced Lotus has taken him to a win in the opening race in Australia and three second-place finishes in the other four Grand Prix. Preserving tyres is by far the biggest concern, and is what saw Mercedes slide backwards down the order in Spain after locking out the front row in qualifying. Ferrari dominated at Barcelona with a planned four-stop strategy, something we saw some teams like McLaren and Mercedes forced into at Bahrain when they just couldnt make a three-stop last in the abrasive heat of the desert. On top of all the work the teams are doing to make the tyres last, weve seen several delamination incidents in the last two Grand Prix. In Bahrain, Hamilton and Massa were struck down by tyres bursting, seemingly with no particular instigator, and in Spain again we saw tyre delamination where, due to Pirellis new construction, the tread separated from the belt of the tyre rather than deflating, hampering Paul di Resta in practice and taking Jean-Eric Vergne out of the race. These levels of tyre degradation, combined with a lack of refuelling that see teams often having to lift off to save fuel, have turned Formula 1 into an endurance sport. Formula 1 is not meant to be about people managing their car carefully to the end to see who it is that can strike it perfect on getting just enough from their car without taking too much. Its supposed to be a hardcore thrash, flat out start-to-finish with the worlds best drivers utilising the worlds most advanced machines to see who can win in the white-heat of competition on a Sunday afternoon. As a result, something needs to be done. From all angles, the current tyre situation does little good for anyone; Pirellis professional reputation will not be helped in the slightest by people seeing their tyres falling to pieces rapidly on track, or delaminating and flailing around dangerously as they give up under load on yet another weekend where the focus is that the tyres just wont last. For the FIA, continually preaching about reducing costs in the sport (even as they handed everyone the monumental cost of developing an entirely new turbocharged engine), having teams churning their way through tyres like theres no tomorrow wont exactly fit into that rhetoric. For the teams, its another day at the office. Battling with regulations and maximising their car to exploit them is what Formula 1 is all about, and this is hardly the first time that tyre wear has been a primary concern. 2005 saw exactly the same thing, primarily to stop Ferraris dominance of the sport. For the fans, its something we want fixed, as we dont want to see people carefully cruising around; we lust for exciting, wheel-to-wheel action of our nostalgic memories, where people put in stunning laps to seize an unlikely victory or close up on the leader for a high-stakes duel in the dying laps. However, things arent so simple, and it leaves us with a conundrum.