MOTORSPORT: Pressure's on Bathurst tyres

Friday motorsport report
October 9, 2009

V8 Supercar teams are on notice from control tyre supplier Dunlop to treat their tyres with kid gloves, especially when cold, and to avoid hitting kerbs.

Extensive testing of the V8 Supercar tyres at Dunlop's Kobe factory in Japan has shown them to be susceptible to damage or failure if they hit kerbs while at low pressure.

The weekly electronic version of Motorsport News magazine reported this week that Dunlop's Japanese engineers had issued instructions to minimise the risk of unnecessary tyre stress.

In particular, teams have been told to ensure tyre pressures are set above 18 psi and to avoid weaving on cold tyres and full tanks of fuel.

"The main message that has come out of Japan is that excessively low pressure is critical -- nothing below 18 psi," Dunlop's Australian motorsport manager Kevin Fitzsimons said.

"The teams have also been told not to go out of pitlane and start swerving massively and warming up the tyres with full tanks of fuel.

"They need to be gentle in the first half of the lap."

Fitzsimons told Motorsport News that there were no failures in the Kobe testing with tyres at 19 psi, but said: "At 18 psi there was one failure, at 17.5 they had six and 17 psi they had 10, at 16.5 they had 18.

"Too-low pressure really over-deflected the tyre, so it just crushes it, and when the cord breaks that's what gives you the weak spot in the tyre -- the tyre flexes on that spot more than the other and you get a little bubble in it."

There were numerous tyre failures during last year's Bathurst 1000 but sharp-edged kerbs on the exit of turn two and the inside apex at The Chase have been smoothed out this year.

However, Holden's main hope this weekend, the HRT Commodore of Garth Tander and Will Davison, had a right front tyre "let go" at The Chase with Tander at the wheel during Thursday's opening practice.

Fitzsimons has told the official V8 Supercar website, V8supercars.com.au, that Bathurst's Mt Panorama circuit has unique characteristics that put strain on Dunlop's V8 Supercar control tyre.

"The lower the pressure the more risk that you take of over-deflecting the tyre," he said.

"If they (drivers) hit the kerb hard enough with a full tank of fuel and with low pressure -- because the tyres haven't come up to temperature yet -- they run the risk of damaging the tyre, so the message is be careful when the tyres are cold.

"The vertical load is much greater here than at any other circuit.

"The things aren't bullet proof ... we have had drivers comment that the tyres aren't strong enough for here, but that is the problem you have when you have one tyre that has to work at so many different circuits.

"This tyre is a compromise and it has to do every scenario in the series, including massive temperature differences ... and changes at each circuit in both vertical and lateral loads.

"That's not an easy thing to do and, considering everything, the tyre is doing a good job.

"There were teams coming to Bathurst and having the same problems every year and it's just a case of educating them that they can't run these aggressive cambers and constantly hit kerbs at this circuit.

"If they treat the tyre correctly and don't go aggressive on set-up or constantly hit kerbs they won't have a problem," added Fitzsimons.
Practice continues today (Friday), with two qualifying sessions as well, the shootout Saturday to decide the starting order of the top 10 qualifiers and the 161-lap Great Race on Sunday.

Bathurst remains very much our greatest race -- and it can't come soon enough.

We recall commenting last year how lacklustre the lead-up to the race was, and it's the same again this year.

Certainly there has been interest in and attention on it in Sydney, but from this author's view, the talk and media reporting has been as much about Glenn Seton's absence (and acceptance that his chances of winning Bathurst are now gone as he prepares to watch Sunday from a lounge chair at home in Queensland) and the visit of 1990 winner Win Percy from Britain, as on this year's field.

Other than Craig Lowndes, Jamie Whincup and Triple Eight Race Engineering/Team Vodafone going for a record fourth Bathurst victory in a row, or HRT's Tander and Davison trying to repeat their Phillip Island 500 success, the storylines have been thin.

To the bulk of the Australian public, Bathurst remains a one-day-of-the-year thing, rather than taking on the week-long event status of the AFL, NRL or A-League football grand finals.

Perhaps that is the price paid for a limited entry of little more than 30 cars, only two makes of car, and the absence of the battlers who helped make this the Great Race -- replaced by tailenders who are there more because they can afford to be rather than on talent.

And, while in the big picture multiple superbike world champion Troy Bayliss is a welcome addition to the scene, this author remains concerned at a system that allows him to be making his V8 Supercar race debut at the biggest and most challenging race and circuit of the season.

Imagine Jamie Whincup turning up at the superbike world championship round next year and getting a start with no experience!

Bayliss is effectively on L plates this weekend. Hopefully for him, and V8 Supercar racing, it all goes well.

But, having had a development series for several years now, surely the system ought to be that anyone needs to come through that series, however quickly, and be required to qualify for a kind of "super-licence" to compete in the main game, and especially the main race of the year.

While NSW has a Labor state government bending over backwards to facilitate a costly new street race at the Homebush Olympic precinct in less than two months now, the rules of engagement at Bathurst remain very liberal -- both for entry to the race, as in the case of Bayliss, and for fans into the venue.

Police are urging the fans to take care on the roads to and from Bathurst and to heed warnings regarding behaviour and alcohol.

Assistant Commissioner Alan Clarke has said the main emphasis for the police operation is public safety and the reduction of alcohol-related crime and violence.

Yet the daily drinking limits are 24 cans of full-strength beer, or 36 cans of light or mid-strength beer, or up to 24 cans of pre-mixed drinks, or up to 4 litres of cask wine.

Bathurst is a great circuit, a great race, but a place of excess and contradiction.

Australia's Ryan Briscoe, driving for Team Penske, is in a three-way contest for the title with Team Ganassi drivers Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti.

An Aussie, a Kiwi and a Scotsman in an American open-wheeler championship tussle with just eight points between them.

The result should be known by the time Bathurst gets underway Sunday.

During the week we came across, but now can't remember where, some scenarios on how Briscoe can win the IRL title, and here they are:

• If he wins the pole and the race, he wins the championship.
• If he wins the race and leads the most laps, he wins the championship.
• If he wins the race, earns the pole and leads the most laps, he wins the championship.
• If he wins the race but doesn't score any bonus points, Dixon can win the title if he finishes second and leads the most laps.
• Dixon will win any tiebreaker over Briscoe (first tiebreaker is victories: Dixon leads 5-3).

There's talk that Kimi Raikkonen could get Webber's seat because of McLaren's apparent reluctance to pay him what his management want for him to return there following his dumping by Ferrari at the end of this season to make way for Fernando Alonso.

Webber has a firm contract for next year, and we would expect it still far more likely that Raikkonen will be at McLaren than Red Bull.

Even if Raikkonen were to arrive at Red Bull, Webber could easily be slid across to sister team Toro Rosso.

And with Red Bull's engine for next year still unknown (while Toro Rosso will again have Ferrari power) that would not be the end of the world.

Indeed, it would be kind of full circle for Webber -- Toro Rosso being the modern incarnation of Minardi, where the Aussie began his F1 career in 2002.

Not ideal perhaps, but remember that Sebastian Vettel won a GP in a Toro Rosso little more than a year ago.

While we don't give a lot of credence to the Raikkonen-to-Red Bull story, here's how it has been reported at crash.net.

Jarno Trulli, not required by Toyota beyond this year but tipped to drive for the reborn, Malaysian-funded Lotus team, is to test a Toyota NASCAR soon, as will Finnish former F1 driver Mika Salo. Those tests will be with Michael Waltrip Racing, under whose umbrella Ambrose now is. Trulli will spend several weeks with the team.

Robert Kubica is confirmed as Fernando Alonso's replacement in the Renault F1 team next year, but the second seat is up in the air.

Volkswagen is said, finally, to be interested in getting into F1 if it sees the costs being seriously lowered. It would probably use either its Audi or Porsche brands for any GP racing project.

Ferrari has rehired its former engineer Luca Marmorini from Toyota to head its engine and electronics department. He will succeed Frenchman Gilles Simon, who has been with the Scuderia for eight constructors' world titles and six driver titles.

McLaren chief Martin Whitmarsh is so keen for F1 to return to North America, and particularly the US, that he says it should offer to go there for free to develop the audience rather than be "so arrogant". Canada's return to the F1 calendar next year is still provisional.

The Grand Prix Drivers Association favors Ari Vatanen rather than Jean Todt in the October 23 election to decide the successor to Max Mosley as president of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). However, the drivers in that association don't have votes in the election, in which Mosley has backed Todt and tipped him to win easily.

The new US F1 team has finally conceded that it is likely at least one of its drivers next season (provided it makes the grid) won't be American. There are several European drivers with big sponsorship chasing a seat, while the only anywhere-near-genuine American contenders appear to be Indy Lights champion JR Hildebrand and Jonathan Summerton, who has won an A1 GP race and is a chance to win the Formula Atlantic series at Laguna Seca in California this weekend.

A1 general manager Paul Cherry told the Gold Coast Bulletin newspaper this week that 500 tyres are on the way for the SuperGP there in two weeks.

The paper reported there may be new teams from Spain and Russia.

The collapse of A1 Grand Prix Operations was listed for a court hearing in Britain this week.

Series organisers have painted that company's failure as a technicality as part of a move of its base to Portugal.

A1's director of worldwide broadcasting, Richard Dorfman, has quit, allegedly owed a lot of money.

International Management Group recently became a partner in the series, with responsibility for media, but a

We expect the series to make it to the Gold Coast, indeed look forward to it, but wonder how many cars will be on the grid -- and whether the series will continue long beyond the Gold Coast round.

While the first round is this year, it will be called the 2010 Australian Tarmac Championship.

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