MOTORSPORT: Hard line on V8 Supercar tyres

Rubber compounds have become a hot topic in Australia's premier category, with costs and entertainment the competing interests

Financial squeeze triggers push for just one type

Money, they say, makes the world go round. At the top levels of motor racing, it's big, fat tyres that are essential to the cars going around quickly.

And tyres are a hot issue within V8 Supercar racing at the minute. So too is money.

Even though V8 Supercar teams are expecting better paydays under the television deal starting next year with pay TV service Fox, money is tight for participants in the category – even those at the front, winning the most races.

And, as a way of containing costs, there is a push to have only one tyre compound in future. That push is very much for the hard-compound Dunlop tyres rather than the soft.

Roland Dane, operator of the team's long-time premier team Triple Eight Race Engineering, is said to be the strongest advocate for greater, or even exclusive, use of the longer-wearing hard tyres. Contacted about the matter, Dane did not see it as appropriate to comment while it is being debated internally.

He is entitled to say and do what he sees as being in the best interests of his business and the category of racing he has made his priority. But many would fear that greater use of hard tyres would only increase the dominance of the Triple Eight team – and especially of five-time, and likely soon six-time, champion Jamie Whincup, who is famously more comfortable on them than the softs.

While the cost of tyres is the issue among competitors, the competing interest is entertainment value – and, on that front, there is no more passionate advocate than John Bowe, whose many achievements in the sport include the 1995 national title (when it was still the Australian Touring Car Championship rather than V8 Supercars) and Bathurst 1000 victories in 1989 and '94, the second of those in a V8 Ford Falcon.

Although a great respecter of what Dane has done in the sport over the past decade, Bowe's view is diametrically opposed. He wants more use made of the soft-compound Dunlops – even exclusively, including the endurance races.

"The soft tyre makes the racing more interesting – and more challenging to the engineers," Bowe said.

"It spices up the racing.

"It is not as soft as the Pirelli tyres were in Formula One [early last year, when multiple explosions, particularly at the British Grand Prix, created major safety concerns and led to mid-season changes]. In V8 Supercars the soft tyres are more 'freestyle'. They bring drivers' intelligence into play…

"They have to figure out how to best handle them [because of the more rapid wear-rate]. They have to manage them, so that's an added challenge – but they relish that and prefer them.

"The soft tyre adds to 'the show' – and the fans can see that," Bowe stated.

The pressure from teams and the V8 Supercar organisation to curb tyre costs has made relations with Dunlop particularly testy of late.

There are believed to have been talks with other tyre manufacturers, but – as Dunlop's contract as the sole supplier to the main and development series runs until 2017 – there is unlikely to be any change of brand in a hurry.

Other brands have been involved in the sport and they, or complete newcomers, may well be interested in future, but there is a long lead-time in manufacturing race tyres – especially as those for V8 Supercars have different dimensions to any others.

Simon Pool, Asia-Pacific manager for Pirelli's competition tyres, said when we chanced upon him during a break in an FIA conference this week, that the Italian company had tendered previously to supply V8 Supercars and "would always be interested".

"There are production capacity issues [all Pirelli's competition tyres are made in Turkey and Romania]… These [V8 Supercar tyres] are not something 'off the shelf'," Pool said.

"You'd need a year's lead time … and it would have to make commercial sense."

The issue at the minute, in V8 Supercars' financially-straightened times, is finding an outcome that is commercially palatable to the tyre supplier as well as the teams racing on the rubber.

Ricciardo eyes podium in Singapore

Daniel Ricciardo has his sights on a podium at this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix, believing his Red Bull-Renault team will be the second best to Mercedes in the night race on the city-state's street circuit.

Ricciardo's world champion teammate of the past four years, Sebastian Vettel, has won in Singapore the past three years and has been outqualifying the West Australian recently. However, the newcomer to Red Bull's premier team has won three GPs this season to Vettel's none and he's confident of continuing to finish ahead of him in races, even without team orders as the championship heads to its conclusion.

Ricciardo is 72 points behind Mercedes' championship leader Nico Rosberg and 50 in arrears of its second-placed and last-start winner Lewis Hamilton, but there is no indication Red Bull will issue team orders with six races remaining – the last in Abu Dhabi carrying double points.

Ricciardo, a former WA karting champion who is to launch his own kart brand in coming weeks, said he expected the Red Bulls to "definitely be closer [to the Mercs] than at Monza [venue for the previous race, the Italian GP]".

"The approach from now is to attack as much as we can," he said.

"The surface in Singapore always looks pretty dirty [to the drivers] ... what you're driving on is a public road with all the grit and grime and dirt that those have. It means you're in for a slithery, bumpy weekend – which I love," Ricciardo stated.

A problem there this week has been smoke haze from forest fires on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, but the biggest issue for drivers could be the new clamp on communications from their crews on the pit wall.

Teams have been told they can no longer give drivers advice or "coaching" either by radio or on pit boards.

"The team can only tell me 20 per cent of the stuff they used to tell me," Mercedes driver Rosberg said.

Concerns have been raised about safety, especially with engineers now seemingly prohibited from giving drivers important technical information on the formation lap. The drivers also will have to manage batteries and energy recovery systems alone.

"The formation lap will be the most difficult," Rosberg said.

"For sure, the starts are going to be difficult to get right because we relied on the engineers."

Webber and Ambrose chase elusive success in US

The World Endurance Championship resumes this weekend, with Mark Webber hopeful of Porsche winning one of the five remaining races with its 919 Hybrid against rivals Audi and Toyota.

The first of these is at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas – also home to the US F1 GP and where Australia's V8 Supercars raced last year.

Porsche has tested extensively at the Paul Ricard, Lausitz and Magny-Cours in Europe since the 919 Hybrid that Webber drove at the Le Mans 24-Hour in June was in second place until an engine failure two hours from the chequered flag.

Meanwhile, Marcos Ambrose has nine races left in the US this year to try to score that elusive win on an oval track before his return to Australia to race a V8 Supercar for Roger Penske and Dick Johnson.

With that news confirmed this week, Ambrose said he and his NASCAR team, Richard Petty Motorsports, "now can just concentrate on the task at hand – and that's to win a race before the end of the season".

"Both of us want nothing more than that," Ambrose said.

MOTORSPORT: Hard line on V8 Supercar tyres

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