Speaker 1: I'm going to take my shoes off. Everybody. Sorry, it's
Speaker 1: been a long day and the shoes are coming off.
Speaker 1: So it's like when mister Rogers takes his jacket off.
Speaker 1: It's like, my shoes come off. It's time to start.
Speaker 2: Happy to be in the booth for once.
Speaker 1: Tony Michael, thanks for all the great clips you sent,
Speaker 1: all the information you sent me in advance of this
Speaker 1: Tire Ahead recording. But it just occurred to me, I
Speaker 1: can't remember the last time I changed my tires on
Speaker 1: my car, and everything seems fine, which got me thinking
Speaker 1: of all this endless tire talk and more tire talk
Speaker 1: that we're going to have. Why does an f one
Speaker 1: and all their data and technological advancement just make tires
Speaker 1: that hold up better that would be better for the
Speaker 1: environment as well.
Speaker 3: Do that?
Speaker 4: Okay, so I think, well, I think a lot of things.
Speaker 4: But first, just from a safety perspective, you might want
Speaker 4: to take your car in and have those tires inspected.
Speaker 1: For My Heart podcast one on one Studios and Sports
Speaker 1: Illustrated Studios, this is choosing sides, yes one wow, Wow, Tony. Respectfully,
Speaker 1: I feel like I already know everything there is to
Speaker 1: know about tires.
Speaker 4: Respectfully, I beg to differ.
Speaker 1: Hey Matt, Hey, how's it going?
Speaker 4: You know, not too bad? And to convince you otherwise,
Speaker 4: we have invited to the show some true tire heads.
Speaker 4: Matt welcome. Who are you for our listeners? Who is
Speaker 4: who is Matt?
Speaker 1: I am Matt Trumpets.
Speaker 5: I'm co host of Mister Apex podcast, host of tech
Speaker 5: Time on Mister Apex, and I am a professional trumpet
Speaker 5: player who somehow managed to find himself on a podcast
Speaker 5: about Formula one with a bunch of people from England.
Speaker 1: So that's who I am.
Speaker 4: And that is Matt playing in the background.
Speaker 1: By the way, well it's actually quite lovely.
Speaker 4: Any overlap between the trumpet worlds and the Formula one
Speaker 4: world or are they just two very different worlds?
Speaker 5: No colliding needed, There's loads of colliding needed because as
Speaker 5: a professional musician, as a trumpet player, it performance is
Speaker 5: what I'm about. And so anytime you look at something
Speaker 5: like Formula one, you look at the job the drivers do,
Speaker 5: you look at the job the engineers do, and they're
Speaker 5: all performing under an unbelievable amount of stress at the
Speaker 5: very very highest level, and in particular the drivers, and
Speaker 5: I know what you want to talk about I know
Speaker 5: you want to talk about tires.
Speaker 1: We will get to that.
Speaker 5: But when you look at the drivers, yeah, and you
Speaker 5: look at something like their lap times in a race,
Speaker 5: and they can be consistent within a couple of tents,
Speaker 5: lap after lap after lap, and then their engineers will
Speaker 5: say things like we need you to do something entirely
Speaker 5: differently but not lose any time, and they'll be within
Speaker 5: a tenth of what they were doing. The consistency they
Speaker 5: bring at that level while they're raising other people, it's
Speaker 5: just it's astonishing to me. It was really one of
Speaker 5: the first things that sort of drew me into the
Speaker 5: sport before I even knew anything about tires or Formula one.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what's so special about the F one tires?
Speaker 1: First of all, what are F one tires? Okay?
Speaker 5: So first of all, let's start with this. Tires on
Speaker 5: their own are unbelievably interesting, and the thing that is
Speaker 5: most interesting about them, kind of like dark matter, is
Speaker 5: no one can entirely explain exactly one hundred percent how
Speaker 5: they work. I mean, the gases have gotten a lot better,
Speaker 5: there are models out there you can use, but at
Speaker 5: the end of the day, it's this freakish combination of
Speaker 5: the kind of material and the different sorts of forces
Speaker 5: that cause grip to happen, and it just it's too complicated.
Speaker 5: No one can model it perfectly, no one understands it
Speaker 5: all the way, and it is the single biggest driver
Speaker 5: of performance differences. If you get your tires right, you're
Speaker 5: talking multiple seconds a lap. If you're an arrow guy
Speaker 5: and you bring an amazing development, that might be worth
Speaker 5: a tenth of a lap, But if your tires aren't
Speaker 5: in the window, that could be seconds a lap that
Speaker 5: you lose. So their single most important driver performance. No
Speaker 5: one understands them. And now they're the same for all
Speaker 5: the teams. All the teams have to try and get
Speaker 5: their heads around it and get it right or get
Speaker 5: it wrong. All your car design, everything is aimed at
Speaker 5: ringing the absolute best out of those tires, and it's
Speaker 5: really hard to do because getting back to point A,
Speaker 5: no one really entirely understands them, even at is zero level.
Speaker 5: Tires are complicated, and the more you know, the more
Speaker 5: you can enjoy watching the racing.
Speaker 4: Did you also know that some drivers are actually incredibly
Speaker 4: good quote unquote managing that tires?
Speaker 1: I don't what is that how do you manage a tire?
Speaker 1: You get back in there, let's go roll. Oh see,
Speaker 1: I love this.
Speaker 5: You're going to ask me about tire management, thinking you're
Speaker 5: going to get an easy, simple answer, and in fact
Speaker 5: you've just unlocked the most complicated.
Speaker 1: Aspect of tires.
Speaker 5: But I will try and keep it fairly straightforward and simple.
Speaker 5: So whenever you drive in a straight line, you're putting
Speaker 5: stress on your tires. If you're stepping on the gas,
Speaker 5: you're putting stress on the tires. And what is called
Speaker 5: a longitudinal direction basically the same direction you're driving, and
Speaker 5: then when you turn, you're adding a lateral component to that.
Speaker 5: And if you think about a tire having a grip
Speaker 5: level of one hundred for one hundred percent, you have
Speaker 5: to balance between the two, so you could be thirty
Speaker 5: percent accelerating seventy percent turning or vice versa. But when
Speaker 5: you do that, you're adding energy to the tires and
Speaker 5: that makes them get hotter. And the thing with tires
Speaker 5: is they're constructed basically in two pieces. There's the tread,
Speaker 5: the bed on top that touches the ground, and then
Speaker 5: there's the carcass, the bit underneath that actually keeps everything
Speaker 5: together and makes it work. And what you want is
Speaker 5: for the carcass and the tread to be of a
Speaker 5: similar temperature. And as that carcass warms up, it gets
Speaker 5: more flexible, you get more grip out of it. And
Speaker 5: so when you go into your turn, whether you're breaking
Speaker 5: or accelerating, and you're putting that energy in the tire itself,
Speaker 5: it actually isn't pointed quite the same way as the car,
Speaker 5: and that's called the slip angle. And the bigger the
Speaker 5: slip angle, the more energy goes into the tire. And
Speaker 5: if you make the surface of the tire too hot,
Speaker 5: you start to have problems with it. So you get
Speaker 5: things like graining, which you probably have heard people talk about,
Speaker 5: where you get this little ripple pattern. It's like having
Speaker 5: little marbles of rubber on the tire. And so if
Speaker 5: you overheat the tire when the carcass is too cold,
Speaker 5: you get graining and suddenly your tire won't go as fast.
Speaker 5: A great example of this was in the Las Vegas race.
Speaker 5: You had two drivers same team. You had Auckun and Ghasly,
Speaker 5: and Ghasly was having trouble managing his tires. He got
Speaker 5: graining and eventually fell all the way out of the
Speaker 5: top ten, and it was little things like he was
Speaker 5: going into corners in different gears.
Speaker 4: I don't get it.
Speaker 1: I understand. I kind of have so much regulation I
Speaker 1: was I boy.
Speaker 5: So when I talk about the drivers and their ability
Speaker 5: to manage things, it's being told things like, Okay, we
Speaker 5: need you to use a different gear, we need you
Speaker 5: to lift and coasts, we need you to manage in
Speaker 5: this corner. And they're not talking about a lot. They're
Speaker 5: talking about tens, hundreds, thousands of a percent. But they
Speaker 5: can make literally the difference between finishing fourth or fifth
Speaker 5: and finishing twelfth if you can do it or if
Speaker 5: you can't.
Speaker 1: I'm intrigued by this. Oh good, because in other sport
Speaker 1: oftentimes let's let's let's let's let's talk about tennis for
Speaker 1: a second.
Speaker 6: Okay, there's a new one I know.
Speaker 1: But the greatest player in the world maybe ever, Novak
Speaker 1: Djokovic thirty six years old right now. Everyone he's competing
Speaker 1: with is twenty twenty one, twenty two. One of the
Speaker 1: things he does best is he utilizes his body and
Speaker 1: his energy for the longest periods of time. So even
Speaker 1: if he loses the first set early to a young
Speaker 1: kid who's You're always like, watch out, dude, there's five
Speaker 1: hours left in this guy's tank. And what you're telling
Speaker 1: me is the best F one drivers manage their tire
Speaker 1: the same way correct And how do they do that?
Speaker 5: It's a learned skill. And yeah, I remember Hamilton back
Speaker 5: in the day having a year or so where he
Speaker 5: had to master the new Parali tire. They took him
Speaker 5: about a year. But yeah, some drivers are much better
Speaker 5: at sensing what they're doing to the tires, the slip angle,
Speaker 5: the entry speed, you know how much breaking, what their
Speaker 5: take out of the tires. And then you'll hear the
Speaker 5: engineers be like, okay, push push, push when you get
Speaker 5: near a pit stop, because then now you don't want
Speaker 5: any life left on the tires when you get rid
Speaker 5: of them, but you want them to last as long
Speaker 5: as you need to for the strategy of your particular race.
Speaker 5: Am I going to undercut the guy in front of me?
Speaker 5: Am I protecting against something from behind me? Do I
Speaker 5: think there's going to be a safety car? So you
Speaker 5: see radically different tire strategies, and often they're based on
Speaker 5: the abilities of the driver. If your driver's bad at
Speaker 5: managing tires. And by bad, please understand that's an incredibly
Speaker 5: relative bad. I couldn't do any of this. But if
Speaker 5: your driver's bad, you might think, Okay, it's better for
Speaker 5: us to aim for an extra pit stop and let
Speaker 5: them just really go to town rather than ask them
Speaker 5: to do something. They're not great at it, and it's
Speaker 5: going to make them unhappy, and then there's still not
Speaker 5: going to be great at it, so the strategy is
Speaker 5: not going to work anyway, And so that can be
Speaker 5: sometimes when you see same teams run different strategies with
Speaker 5: different drivers. Is going to be down to their abilities,
Speaker 5: and it can.
Speaker 1: Change from track to track.
Speaker 5: Sometimes travers will have a good week, sometimes they'll have
Speaker 5: a bad week, depending on on the types turns you have,
Speaker 5: the type of asphalt you have, what particular compounds.
Speaker 1: They've brought to the race. Oh, so many variables. I
Speaker 1: know they look different, but as it made of the
Speaker 1: same stuff, is just my road tires. You know what
Speaker 1: makes them special? Well, they're not even special because they
Speaker 1: obviously wear down so much faster than my tires.
Speaker 5: Well, they look the same, but what makes them different
Speaker 5: is the quality of the work. To a certain extent,
Speaker 5: they're all handmade, they're not built on a machine line.
Speaker 1: But the real.
Speaker 5: Magic though, is on the top. It's the compounds, and
Speaker 5: there you have your basic rubber, but you have an
Speaker 5: unknown mix of chemicals added at certain intervals that give
Speaker 5: it the consistency, the stickiness. So how soft is it,
Speaker 5: how long does it last? And what you also have
Speaker 5: n a raised tire often is you often have multiple
Speaker 5: compounds and a tread. So, for example, the inside shoulders
Speaker 5: of the tires will have a harder compound than the
Speaker 5: outside shoulders, and that's because the tires designed to roll
Speaker 5: over to that outside when it's taking all the weight
Speaker 5: of the race car and a turn, so you need
Speaker 5: it stickier there. But when they go down the streets
Speaker 5: usually they're angled up a little bit, which is camber,
Speaker 5: which means that you tend to do the most running
Speaker 5: on that mid to inside part of the tire. So
Speaker 5: they'll have different compounding across a tread, and they'll have
Speaker 5: different ways of making that compound, which is which is
Speaker 5: really an art and a magic and where a lot
Speaker 5: of this performance will come from compounds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what does that mean? A compound?
Speaker 5: A compound is the combination of rubber plus the other
Speaker 5: chemicals that make up the tread of the tire. So
Speaker 5: in Formula one, they have at every race what they
Speaker 5: call the soft, the medium, and the hard.
Speaker 4: There's always a trade off, there's always for each tire compound,
Speaker 4: there's a benefit and a trade off as in life.
Speaker 1: Ye as in Mario Kart. Now you want the small,
Speaker 1: little tiny character. He goes faster, but if he gets
Speaker 1: knocked over, he flies out. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Okay, I like that. I don't do Mario Kart. So
Speaker 4: that's a good that's a good good knowledge.
Speaker 1: Down for us.
Speaker 4: So soft tires they wear out much faster, but they
Speaker 4: allow you to go much faster as well. Copy and
Speaker 4: you've got the medium, which is middle of rich. It's
Speaker 4: your reliable tire. It neither goes faster nor does it
Speaker 4: wear out faster. And then, as you can imagine, there's
Speaker 4: the hard tire that performs less well but also lasts
Speaker 4: a lot longer.
Speaker 1: So will they start hard finish soft?
Speaker 4: It depends on their strategy, also depends on how well
Speaker 4: they did in qualifying.
Speaker 1: Start hard to finish soft. But I just said that,
Speaker 1: and this is.
Speaker 4: Now coming right, and then we're not done because as
Speaker 4: with all things Formula one, it's a lot more complicated.
Speaker 5: They actually have C zero to see five. They have
Speaker 5: sort of five different compounds, which is a various mix
Speaker 5: of these tread chemicals that they will use depending upon
Speaker 5: how damaging the asphalt is and how much energy is
Speaker 5: being put into the tire. So the more damaging the asphalt,
Speaker 5: the more energy Usually the harder the construction of tire
Speaker 5: they will go with. And by harder, it's all relative.
Speaker 5: None of these would last anywhere near anything you'd put.
Speaker 1: On your road car.
Speaker 4: And then we're not done because then there's the intermediate,
Speaker 4: and then is the wet tires for whend it's absolutely
Speaker 4: throwing it down.
Speaker 1: What's intermediates.
Speaker 4: That's when you use when it's slightly drizzling.
Speaker 1: Oh, for god's sake, it has a slightly drizzling tires,
Speaker 1: it's raining tire.
Speaker 4: That's the blue tie, and that's the green tire.
Speaker 5: So the intermediates are the first step you go to
Speaker 5: when it starts raining and you've lost too much performance
Speaker 5: on the slicks. And then if it's a real deluge,
Speaker 5: then you go to the full wet, which have tread
Speaker 5: blocks and voids that look a lot like what you
Speaker 5: see on your road car, and those again are mainly
Speaker 5: to keep the cars from aqua planing and also to
Speaker 5: clear what is like a bath hub a second per
Speaker 5: tire of water from the track, because the real thing
Speaker 5: that keeps people from racing is if there's too much
Speaker 5: water on the track, the car's aquaplane then it's unsafe.
Speaker 5: And you just got these really long, boring red flag periods.
Speaker 5: So getting the cars out on the full wets and
Speaker 5: clearing the track leads to racing again sooner.
Speaker 4: Okay, we need to take a quick pause and a
Speaker 4: quick break, and then we're going to get into the
Speaker 4: fascinating topic of tire rims.
Speaker 1: Wow, we are, We're going to really talk tires.
Speaker 4: We're gonna talk times.
Speaker 1: Great.
Speaker 4: Okay, back from a break, I feel.
Speaker 1: Ready to dive into some rims.
Speaker 4: They're the same for every car, same design, same material.
Speaker 4: Interestingly enough, that wasn't always the case. It used to
Speaker 4: be back in the day that the teams would create
Speaker 4: their own rims. But similar to what we were talking
Speaker 4: about in the previous episode, we realize that's actually not
Speaker 4: where we want the teams to be focusing their time
Speaker 4: and effort.
Speaker 1: I wish every baseball player, I'd use the same beat.
Speaker 4: Oh, I love that actually. Okay, so that's the first bit.
Speaker 4: The second thing is the wheel covers. They're plastic. But
Speaker 4: here's what's interesting about the wheel covers. Remember that episode
Speaker 4: where we were talking about sponsors and advertisement. You could
Speaker 4: have your face potentially on one of the wheel covers
Speaker 4: that we didn't actually talk about. McClaren have maximized every
Speaker 4: sponsorship opportunity in placement and they've actually got Google as
Speaker 4: a sponsor, and so we've got the Google colors on
Speaker 4: the rims. The wheel nuts, this is where it gets interesting.
Speaker 4: They're unique to each team, so every team develops their
Speaker 4: own wheel nuts. Every will not cost one thousand dollars,
Speaker 4: meaning that during a race weekend, teams can spend up
Speaker 4: to fifty thousand dollars justin wheel nuts.
Speaker 1: That's a kick in the nuts. It's just funny that
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, the rims were in charge of the rims.
Speaker 1: No one else can mess with the rims, but nuts
Speaker 1: have at it like it's.
Speaker 4: The fact that Prairie looks after the rims helps the
Speaker 4: flow of everything. The wheel nuts, the teams are actually
Speaker 4: interacting with them as they change the tires. And so
Speaker 4: if they're creating their own wheel guns and the wheel nuts,
Speaker 4: it's easier for the team to look after that.
Speaker 1: How many nuts are in a wheel? Tell me more
Speaker 1: about the wheel nuts the wheel nuts.
Speaker 4: It's actually a really interesting question because unlike road cars,
Speaker 4: F one cars have just one wheel nut in the middle,
Speaker 4: in the center. Again, to facilitate the changing of tires
Speaker 4: during the pit stop. Here's a guess for you. I
Speaker 4: had to change a tire on my own. I did
Speaker 4: like a pit stop challenge with red Ball, and to
Speaker 4: take off the tire with the gun, put it back on,
Speaker 4: change it, et cetera. How long do you think that
Speaker 4: took me?
Speaker 1: Well, takes them two seconds. Yeah, so I would say
Speaker 1: you are twice as bad as them. It's not for
Speaker 1: any other reason other than you're just a one person.
Speaker 1: So I would say four seconds. It was very bad.
Speaker 4: It was bad fourteen seconds because I mean they're heavy.
Speaker 4: Fourteen seven. Yeah, the wheels are really heavy, which is
Speaker 4: but the wheel gun like that was insane. I did
Speaker 4: not expect to have to put that much pressure and
Speaker 4: take it off, which just it's nice to do these
Speaker 4: small exercise you realize, just okay, you guys are doing
Speaker 4: a pretty solid job. Here.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at a wheel nut gun right now, and
Speaker 1: you know what it looks like. It looks like some
Speaker 1: Star Wars. Shit. Yeah, it's really insane. And they must
Speaker 1: all have their own wheel nut gun because they all
Speaker 1: make their own wheel nuts. But they all must use
Speaker 1: the same wheel nuts, don't they don't they kind of share.
Speaker 1: That seems like a lot to all invent your own
Speaker 1: wheel nut. Okay, so what else? We're not even finished
Speaker 1: with the tires. The rim wheel covers wheel nut.
Speaker 4: Should I continue? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's more.
Speaker 4: Yeah, FIA sensors. We actually just got off talking. You know,
Speaker 4: previous episode we talked at length about all the sensors
Speaker 4: and all the data. There's actually FIA sensors inside of
Speaker 4: the wheels that measures both the temperature and the pressure
Speaker 4: of the wheels.
Speaker 5: The teams themselves will run infrared sensors look at the
Speaker 5: tire surfaces and see how they are doing that way.
Speaker 5: They'll also run aerodynamics sensors because the tires I don't
Speaker 5: need to tell you, no, wait, I do need to
Speaker 5: tell you. The tires absolutely have a massive impact on
Speaker 5: the aerodynamics of the car.
Speaker 1: The front wheelwake will absolutely ruin.
Speaker 5: Your downforce if you don't manage it, and the rear
Speaker 5: if the sidewalls are too flexible, as Red Bull learned
Speaker 5: in twenty thirteen, it will absolutely ruin your diffuser performance
Speaker 5: and you will be nowhere because you get yes, i'm
Speaker 5: gonna say it, tire squirt, where the babble of the
Speaker 5: rear tire going around a turn sends air into your
Speaker 5: diffuser and keeps it from working correctly.
Speaker 4: And then there's something else, which is the barkut that
Speaker 4: records all the places the tire has been around the
Speaker 4: paddock if it's been used. It's helpful for both the
Speaker 4: regulations safety, but it also helps even the commentators to
Speaker 4: track which tire has been used if it's been used
Speaker 4: multiple times. There's another thing that you will see, or
Speaker 4: that you might not see tied to the tires, which
Speaker 4: is have you ever heard of wheel weights?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 4: Okay, so I'm going to botch this completely, but when
Speaker 4: these like please do. When Perelli put the tires together
Speaker 4: and prep all the tires for the teams, they make
Speaker 4: sure that the tires are properly balanced, because no matter
Speaker 4: how hard and perfect you try and make the rim
Speaker 4: and the tire and when you put it together, they
Speaker 4: might be off center and off balance ever so slightly.
Speaker 4: So they have a machine that sensors where it's off
Speaker 4: balance and it says it's off balanced by a gram
Speaker 4: or two grams, and so you have these little wheelwights.
Speaker 4: What's funny with this is the Queen of England used
Speaker 4: to use the same thing in her dresses so that
Speaker 4: they wouldn't fly up. And fun fact, two years ago,
Speaker 4: when I was in the paddock in Austin, I was
Speaker 4: wearing very bad mistake of short, flowy dress which got
Speaker 4: me into trouble a few times with the wind. And
Speaker 4: so one of my good friends who works at Preddie,
Speaker 4: was just like, I think, I know exactly how I
Speaker 4: can help you, and he ended up sticking wheel waits
Speaker 4: at the bottom of my dress so it wouldn't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, another contribution of f one's technological advancements to our society,
Speaker 1: to our society, which of course was stolen by the
Speaker 1: Queen exact. Okay, well I think let me just offer
Speaker 1: quick feedback. Yes, a lot is going into tires and
Speaker 1: let me back it up. It's because the tires actually
Speaker 1: touched the track. Wow, insightful, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Tires for me, are like the biggest paradox in Formula
Speaker 4: one because it's the one thing that the teams have
Speaker 4: honestly absolutely no can over, and yet it's the one
Speaker 4: thing that actually touches the tarmac and the floor. And
Speaker 4: when I say no control, they can obviously choose which
Speaker 4: ties they use and when. But other than that, it's
Speaker 4: all Parelli's doing. And I just think that is pretty
Speaker 4: paradoxical and pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: I invite every listener, yeah, to think about any time
Speaker 1: they or a loved one of theirs did a physical
Speaker 1: activity or a competitive activity, the emphasis and the time
Speaker 1: they spent on their feet and footwear. There you go,
Speaker 1: it's insane. You want to go hiking, There's a whole
Speaker 1: thing you got to do for the feet and footwear.
Speaker 1: If you're a ballerina, if you're a soccer player, tennis players.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like one year Shack didn't even play
Speaker 1: basketball because he had turf toe feet are touching the
Speaker 1: field of play and this is times four at three
Speaker 1: hundred miles an hour or whatever it is.
Speaker 4: They go as an ex ballerina. I absolutely love.
Speaker 1: That ex ballerina. Yea, and his feet are fucked up.
Speaker 4: Oh, Yeah. You know what's interesting also with the paler
Speaker 4: with ballerinas is they make it look so effortless and
Speaker 4: clean and easy, and then you realize it's everything but that.
Speaker 4: And I feel like that's the same with like tire degradation,
Speaker 4: as you look at it and go, this looks easy.
Speaker 4: That you know, the cars look like they're gliding on
Speaker 4: the tarmac, and then when you look closer you go oh,
Speaker 4: which I also think is where it's worth like giving
Speaker 4: praise to the Parreli garage, which honestly is just as
Speaker 4: busy during a race weekend and every other of the
Speaker 4: team garages. There's thirty people there that are Prelli tired
Speaker 4: technicians and experts that are doing everything that they can
Speaker 4: to make sure they're delivering to each team the best
Speaker 4: tires possible and imaginable.
Speaker 1: Let me stop you right there. You keep mentioning Perrelli. Ye,
Speaker 1: you keep saying this as if I'm supposed to know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. Okay, Prelli. I've just looked at
Speaker 1: all the teams. There's no Perrelli there. What's Perrelli?
Speaker 4: You've got to know who Parrelli is important. It is important.
Speaker 4: They are important, so Parelli is currently F one's sole
Speaker 4: tire provider, and they've been the only exclusive tie provider
Speaker 4: for Formula One since twenty eleven.
Speaker 5: They make all of the tires for all of the
Speaker 5: Formula One teams according to a brief provided to them
Speaker 5: by the FIA, with input from the teams and Formula
Speaker 5: One as well, and they will occasionally show up with
Speaker 5: new tires to be tested after certain races because it's
Speaker 5: for them, just like the teams, a constant development were
Speaker 5: to stay on top of the needs as the teams
Speaker 5: themselves get faster and add more downforce.
Speaker 1: What happened before, and you could just drive any tire
Speaker 1: you want to.
Speaker 4: You're back with us at the brick yond the Superspeedway.
Speaker 4: It was a point out which was completely.
Speaker 1: Wild, chaos, confusion rangs.
Speaker 4: For those listeners who have never heard of the very
Speaker 4: sad two thousand and five USA Formula one stop, can
Speaker 4: you give us a quick story time, a quick debrief?
Speaker 4: What do we need to know about that?
Speaker 5: It's really a pretty simple story. There were two constructors
Speaker 5: in at the time, one of them was Michelin.
Speaker 3: It's easy to see the arguments on both sides from
Speaker 3: Michelin's point of view, they knew from Friday and those
Speaker 3: accidents that they had a problem.
Speaker 5: When you race at Indianapolis, you run a section of
Speaker 5: the oval banking. Yeah, and what happened was the Michelin tires,
Speaker 5: two of them, had already failed on the banking at
Speaker 5: the speeds the cars were running.
Speaker 7: The teams have been told categorically that they cannot go
Speaker 7: through that final turn thirteen full throttle.
Speaker 5: So for the start of the Grand Prix, everybody started
Speaker 5: out on the formation lap and then all of the
Speaker 5: Michelin runners.
Speaker 3: It comes alongside World Championship leading.
Speaker 1: You know, our plan is for the stop straight.
Speaker 5: Mike drove into the pits and didn't race, which left
Speaker 5: five cars on the grid, and it was an embarrassing
Speaker 5: spectacle for the sport.
Speaker 3: Just listen to the crowd there.
Speaker 8: Stune where stunned.
Speaker 5: And it also was a huge black eye to Formula
Speaker 5: One in the United States when there was beginning to
Speaker 5: be a little bubble of interest.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, when I arrived at the track this morning, the
Speaker 3: PA system was playing hit the Road, Jack and don't
Speaker 3: you come back no more? And I have a feeling that
Speaker 3: will be the message from Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the
Speaker 3: American public to Formula one after the fast that we
Speaker 3: witnessed here today.
Speaker 5: The eyeballs of Americans have long been a target for
Speaker 5: the people running Formula one, and that did not help
Speaker 5: them at all.
Speaker 4: What kind of message is they're sending out to people
Speaker 4: about Formula.
Speaker 1: One only I'm sorry? Right there are the message.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry for the public, I'm sorry for the spectator,
Speaker 4: and sorry for the people at your TV.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: So that, in essence is what happened.
Speaker 4: You think what Formula one has realized because of the
Speaker 4: paradox that I'm saying, are Formula one it's better to
Speaker 4: have one tire provider, basically unlike the power units where
Speaker 4: different teams are competing on power units. And again, like
Speaker 4: we've talked about, there are certain aspects of the sport
Speaker 4: where they decide, you know what, having everyone on the
Speaker 4: same footing, using the same thing makes sense, and there's
Speaker 4: other times we're just like we want them. So clearly
Speaker 4: it's like a tire wall right now, but on the
Speaker 4: same tires with the same tools, versus let's fight on
Speaker 4: tires as well.
Speaker 5: In the cold, harsh light of reality. The last thing
Speaker 5: Formula one needs is any kind.
Speaker 6: Of a tire war.
Speaker 5: And that goes back to the basic fact of tires,
Speaker 5: which is they are the single biggest performance differentiator you
Speaker 5: can have. So if I'm Perelli and your Michelin and
Speaker 5: your Michelin tires aren't good enough, I'm crushing you by
Speaker 5: laps per race.
Speaker 1: And people have complained. I've heard it.
Speaker 5: People have complained about how boring this season was, and
Speaker 5: that's just because one team had better aerodynamics. Imagine if
Speaker 5: you could add five seconds a lap to Max's performance,
Speaker 5: how exciting would the season be?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 5: And you've got your answer right there.
Speaker 1: Is it true that one of the biggest mistakes in
Speaker 1: the history of Formula one was when has tried to
Speaker 1: use a square shaped tire? What's going on, Michael focus,
Speaker 1: geez does having these different types of tires? Is this?
Speaker 1: Is this an exciting part of the sport? But is
Speaker 1: that fun to like me? Or is that fun to
Speaker 1: Tony who's a tire nerd? Because I could also see
Speaker 1: like you just say, look, everybody, everybody's shut up. You
Speaker 1: get mediums who can drive the fastest.
Speaker 5: If you think it's exciting to watch someone three or
Speaker 5: four seconds behind the leader ten laps from the end,
Speaker 5: going faster and potentially fast enough to catch them before
Speaker 5: they get to the end of the race. Then yes,
Speaker 5: you want this kind of tire strategy. If, on the
Speaker 5: other hand, you think that's boring and you just want
Speaker 5: to see F one drivers drive slowly around a track
Speaker 5: so their tires don't go pop, then what you're asking
Speaker 5: for is what you want.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, it's incredibly when they get it right, When the
Speaker 5: compounds are right and a one stop strategy and a
Speaker 5: two stop strategy are about the same pace and throwing
Speaker 5: the odd safety car, it's incredible exciting.
Speaker 4: We used to refuel during pit stops. The only thing
Speaker 4: we now do with pit stops is more or less
Speaker 4: change the tires. If we took out the pit stops,
Speaker 4: you are taking out such a crucial element. And the
Speaker 4: only reason they do the pit stops is to get
Speaker 4: on different tires. Formula is actually having an issue right
Speaker 4: now where their cars have become so powerful that they
Speaker 4: don't need to be recharged during a race. It used
Speaker 4: to be in formulate the first I think one or
Speaker 4: two or three seasons where they would swap cars mid
Speaker 4: race because they didn't hadn't yet created a battery with
Speaker 4: a lifespan that could do a full race, So you
Speaker 4: have these wild pictures of a car coming into jumping, unbuckling,
Speaker 4: coming out of the car, jumping into another car.
Speaker 1: Is what I do with my electric leaf Flower one
Speaker 1: battery because they're too expensive, so I have to like
Speaker 1: do half the lawn and then plug it in.
Speaker 4: And and then you have to come back.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm like imagining Michael, your wife waiting for you, like.
Speaker 1: With the battery, go go go.
Speaker 4: So I just yeah, it's the It adds, but you
Speaker 4: might appreciate it adds a very human element in sport
Speaker 4: because the pit stops are twenty people, four people on
Speaker 4: each wheel, and it's humans excelling for two seconds and
Speaker 4: doing the best. So it adds that human element where
Speaker 4: just about anything could go wrong during a pitstop.
Speaker 1: Love it any pushback we have on robots controlling everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love a nice human element.
Speaker 4: I thought you don't.
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 1: Okay, so I've been doing some googling, yeah, or blinging.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure who what is it called bing been doing?
Speaker 1: Particularly have not been binging. I see these little blankets, okay,
Speaker 1: let's call them. You know what they look like to me.
Speaker 1: In hockey, when you're not using your skates, you put
Speaker 1: those guards over the skate. I'm seeing these big, strong
Speaker 1: alpha men putting little hats and the tires. What's up?
Speaker 1: What's up with that?
Speaker 4: Okay, so they're called tile a protection. No, they're just
Speaker 4: there to warm so truly, like if you had your
Speaker 4: teapot and you had your cozy the teapot the only
Speaker 4: job of the tea company.
Speaker 1: We're doing this, but I don't think Americans have that
Speaker 1: cozy teapot.
Speaker 4: I was going to say it's the most British thing.
Speaker 1: But I explain this to people who don't know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about.
Speaker 4: The Brits love tea.
Speaker 7: Yes, the rise in popularity of tea between the seventeenth
Speaker 7: and nineteenth centuries and major social, political, and economic implication.
Speaker 1: Not getting into their whole history with the country of Indiana.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're not going that far back. The one thing
Speaker 4: they love more than a cup of tea is a
Speaker 4: little pot of tea. Yes, I feel like I've become
Speaker 4: more British in the extreme.
Speaker 1: But I'm asking now because I do love this part
Speaker 1: of the British.
Speaker 4: So they have a pot of tea, and they have
Speaker 4: like what they call a cozy.
Speaker 7: Traditionally made of cloth, the tea cozy insulates a teapot,
Speaker 7: keeping the contents warm. Their use predates the invention of
Speaker 7: vacuum flasks as a means of keeping hot liquids hot.
Speaker 7: The first documented use of a tea cozy in Britain
Speaker 7: was in eighteen sixty seven. It is probably the Duchess
Speaker 7: of Bedford who, by establishing the activity of afternoon tea
Speaker 7: in eighteen forty, would have brought the popularity of the
Speaker 7: tea cozy during the Victorian era.
Speaker 1: Wow, thank you, JOHI. That was actually a valuable contribution.
Speaker 1: For once. I'm going to pull up a picture of
Speaker 1: a tea cozy. I'm gonna see what this thing looks like.
Speaker 1: It's take a little winter hat.
Speaker 4: It's a little winter hat that covers the whole teapot.
Speaker 1: It's so cute, everybody, if you're not on if you're
Speaker 1: not blinging it right now, you gotta see these British
Speaker 1: little winter hats for their teacup teapots. It's very cute.
Speaker 1: This feels like a rhyme for kids, yes, but that's
Speaker 1: essentially what I'm seeing on these tires.
Speaker 4: And it's exactly that. And you could call them. You've
Speaker 4: got options here, Michael, so you could call them tire
Speaker 4: warmers or tire black kids, so you can.
Speaker 1: Are they plugged in or anything.
Speaker 5: They don't just plug the blankets in. They cycle them
Speaker 5: up and down and up and down based on what
Speaker 5: they think will make the tire most perform it when
Speaker 5: they finally screw it onto the car and send it
Speaker 5: out of the pit lane.
Speaker 1: Oh, not because of the rules, but because of the
Speaker 1: optimal performance.
Speaker 4: Exactly.
Speaker 1: They know so much.
Speaker 4: So cold tires is the enemy of Formula One. When
Speaker 4: they line up on the grid ready for the race
Speaker 4: to begin, they still have everything, the blankets on. When
Speaker 4: you have, for example, the safety car or virtual safety car,
Speaker 4: that's when you see the cars weaving like crazy behind
Speaker 4: the safety car. It's to keep those tires warm.
Speaker 1: Warm them up, becauction them exactly called friction. Everybody, look
Speaker 1: it up.
Speaker 4: Look it up. But here's an interesting thing with the
Speaker 4: tie blankets. There was a plan that in twenty twenty
Speaker 4: four we were going to get rid of tie blankets altogether.
Speaker 5: The only reason to ban the blankets and the warmers
Speaker 5: is for sustainability reasons. And I've had arguments with my
Speaker 5: coho about this. But the warmers themselves chew up a
Speaker 5: lot of electricity, they are heavy, and they have to
Speaker 5: be shipped all over the world.
Speaker 1: This is like a plastic straw situation.
Speaker 3: Like you know.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, no one has taken down any of the big
Speaker 1: oil companies, but I have to not use the plastic
Speaker 1: straw right right, right right. People will poop poo it.
Speaker 5: But it is a significant sustainability step. And it's also
Speaker 5: what I like to call low hanging fruit. It's not
Speaker 5: the hardest thing in the world to do. It's a
Speaker 5: thing that can be done now and will make a
Speaker 5: measurable difference in terms of the sports overall carbon footprint.
Speaker 5: But what you have is the teams, just like the drivers.
Speaker 5: The teams don't like anything they don't control, and they
Speaker 5: don't like anything to change once they've figured out how
Speaker 5: to control it. And this is a really big change.
Speaker 1: I will say, when it comes to environment and climate change.
Speaker 1: So many companies, including f one, you know, it's more
Speaker 1: to them, more important about the actual optics than actually
Speaker 1: doing it. But there's not going to be any races
Speaker 1: if we're all on fire, because we're so hot, so
Speaker 1: maybe we should start taking it seriously.
Speaker 4: True, And you know what else is true? There's not
Speaker 4: going to be a part if we can't sell out.
Speaker 4: So quick break and we'll be right back. You want
Speaker 4: to do it together?
Speaker 1: Yeah, two three and we're back. What percentage of the
Speaker 1: team radio conversation is about tires?
Speaker 8: Is it a lot?
Speaker 5: Everything that's not complaining about another driver's ability to drive
Speaker 5: their car, it's all about tires. P.
Speaker 8: Eighty is very stupping with soft than we have in
Speaker 8: front of him, album En Riquardo and behind we have
Speaker 8: a stroll with medium and crane a turn seven, so
Speaker 8: be careful there.
Speaker 5: We'll need you to lift and coast through here. We
Speaker 5: need a lower apex speed here is so so much
Speaker 5: of it is just about managing the car, getting the
Speaker 5: car to perform the way the driver wants so that
Speaker 5: they can manage the tires.
Speaker 4: Some drivers also are very sneaky, knowing that people listen
Speaker 4: to the team that radio digital Like my there's that
Speaker 4: running joke with Solwis, Hamilton and Bono his engineers like
Speaker 4: the big trouble guys, My tires are giving up and
Speaker 4: everyone's like, you just did the fastest lap what are
Speaker 4: you saying? Your tire? And so there's this whole conspiracy
Speaker 4: that every time that Lewis said my tires are giving up,
Speaker 4: they're just like he's a peak tire performance. That's what's
Speaker 4: happening right now behind He's on my ass. You don't
Speaker 4: say that some cars are notoriously harder quote unquote on
Speaker 4: the tires.
Speaker 6: Guess which which cars are really bad at preserving their tires?
Speaker 1: Don't say ferrari. I wish I could go back and
Speaker 1: change everything. Oh dear, all right, So every team uses
Speaker 1: the same tires. That's something I think I have to emphasize, right,
Speaker 1: Everyone gets the same tire, correct? Can they go through
Speaker 1: as many of them as they want? No, you only
Speaker 1: get so many of the same tire. It's like everyone
Speaker 1: gets their ration.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's a great way of putting it.
Speaker 5: They get thirteen sets of tires over the weekend, six
Speaker 5: four and three, so you get six offts, four mediums
Speaker 5: and three cards. So you have to manage those because
Speaker 5: you need to run them to know how your car
Speaker 5: is working on track. But you also want fresh tires
Speaker 5: for your race, especially for the qualifying, So which tires
Speaker 5: you use in practice? Those tires give you data. Data
Speaker 5: is super useful to teams, but once you've used that set,
Speaker 5: then they are not useful to you. And then after
Speaker 5: every practice session and after qualifying, you have to return
Speaker 5: some of those tires.
Speaker 4: There's a couple of additional rules, such as every driver
Speaker 4: has to use at least two different types of compound
Speaker 4: during a race, which again as to that strategic element.
Speaker 4: So that's also part of the pit stop, like you're
Speaker 4: gonna have. Even if that wasn't a rule, teams have
Speaker 4: to do the pit stop. They also have to change compounds.
Speaker 1: Do they have to pit Yes. It blows my mind
Speaker 1: that they will reuse a tire. It's like looking through
Speaker 1: the bag for you know, something that's still available?
Speaker 4: What else is anywhere Mary Poppins on her bag. You're
Speaker 4: just like, I'm sure there's something at.
Speaker 1: The bottom can help us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but you bring up a great, great question or
Speaker 4: a great nuance, which is you can reuse them over
Speaker 4: the space of a weekend. But after that weekend, each
Speaker 4: team will bring their tires back to the Paradie garage,
Speaker 4: back to the Pretti station. Their whole job is basically
Speaker 4: to take all the tires off, the rims, clean the rims,
Speaker 4: X rayder rims and send the rims back to the teams.
Speaker 1: X ray the rims, X rayder rims.
Speaker 4: They have a look at if there's any degradation, what
Speaker 4: happened to them? Tie all of that stuff, and then
Speaker 4: they take all of the tires. They're gonna get basically destroyed,
Speaker 4: whether they've been used or not, except for the intermediate
Speaker 4: tires and the wet tires. Those if they haven't been used,
Speaker 4: the teams get to keep them, but in the slick tires,
Speaker 4: so those three compounds do not get used ever again,
Speaker 4: even if they weren't used during the race weekend. So
Speaker 4: if a driver crashes in lap one and he didn't
Speaker 4: use any of their tires, those get destroyed and we
Speaker 4: used funnily enough or fun fact, they.
Speaker 5: Get sent back to the factory. They get dissected, taken
Speaker 5: apart and analyzed, and they get run through a shredder
Speaker 5: and recycled into various projects.
Speaker 1: That sounds like that that doesn't really happen. I don't
Speaker 1: think that really happens. I think they say that as
Speaker 1: a nice headline.
Speaker 4: I think it kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe a little bit, but there's no way
Speaker 1: destroying eight sets of brand new tires, is gonna like
Speaker 1: recycle itself back to okayness in the environment.
Speaker 4: Solid point.
Speaker 1: Then I hear them talking about scrubbed tires, Yeah, what's that.
Speaker 4: They generally scrub the tires. They have a little equipment
Speaker 4: tool and you actually see videos that some people call
Speaker 4: ASMR very satisfying videos where you will see them actually
Speaker 4: scraping what's on top of the tire. There's a reason
Speaker 4: that the tires pick up a lot of things on
Speaker 4: the racetrack, and there's two reasons for that. You might
Speaker 4: often hear commentators at the end of a race saying,
Speaker 4: pick up the marbles. Pick up the marbles. What they
Speaker 4: mean by that is all the little pieces of rubber
Speaker 4: degradiation that sits on the side of the track at
Speaker 4: the end of the race. If the car feels too light,
Speaker 4: they will pick up as much tire rubber aspects that
Speaker 4: have fallen off the tires to add weight to the
Speaker 4: tires so that when the car gets weighed at the
Speaker 4: end of the race, it is as heavy as it
Speaker 4: needs to because there's a minimum weight restriction with these
Speaker 4: cars and the drivers insane. So if you pick up
Speaker 4: all the marbles.
Speaker 1: Drive over more stuff, so the car weighs more.
Speaker 4: So the car weighs more, which then if you're planning
Speaker 4: on using that tire again, then it needs to be cleaned.
Speaker 4: But they also clean and scrub the tires at the end,
Speaker 4: because again there's data to get picked up of that.
Speaker 4: It's useful information. It's learning how the tires have degregated
Speaker 4: over time. Like, there's all of that aspect that comes
Speaker 4: into it.
Speaker 6: So I was just, uh, I was just fact checking
Speaker 6: Tony's claim about scrubbing tires creating an as MR sensation.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 6: And I just love to get your feedback. I'm gonna
Speaker 6: I'm gonna play you a little something.
Speaker 1: Is that all right? I hope I don't go from
Speaker 1: soft to hard? All right?
Speaker 6: Tell me, tell me if you can hear this and
Speaker 6: if it's h A S m R and you.
Speaker 1: This is a scrub being scrubbed.
Speaker 4: I think it's more visual pleasing exercise.
Speaker 1: That's not a good as MR. I'll show you a
Speaker 1: guy on TikTok that chops carrots with a SMR and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh carrots, yeah.
Speaker 8: H h.
Speaker 4: So Michael, final thoughts. I know you were somewhat excited
Speaker 4: coming into this episode. Ah, you fashioning yourself a tire ahead.
Speaker 4: Have I put you off?
Speaker 1: No, You've not put me off, Tony. If anything, You've
Speaker 1: put me on to tires, and I could see this
Speaker 1: is cool, This is cool. The managing of the tire
Speaker 1: is a very important task. And it may not snap
Speaker 1: me out of bed in the morning when it comes
Speaker 1: to F one, but I think this is a really
Speaker 1: integral part and I find it interesting and without a doubt.
Speaker 1: I need to get some slick Pirelli tires on my
Speaker 1: family Volvo.
Speaker 4: Huh, yeah, that's gonna great, look for.
Speaker 1: You know what I want in my life? Tell me
Speaker 1: I want my life to be one of those well
Speaker 1: managed tires on a championship car. Okay, A lot of
Speaker 1: people right now don't know what the fuck I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: but I know I want to manage it well. I
Speaker 1: don't want to just be like, oh, fifth, I'm in
Speaker 1: my fifties, life is over. No, no, no, we still
Speaker 1: got some good tires left it. You know, sixties still
Speaker 1: got a good tires left. Maybe my twenties I didn't
Speaker 1: go as fast as I need to do because but
Speaker 1: my seventies I'm kicking ass right now, do you get it?
Speaker 6: I actually really like that. It's like you want to
Speaker 6: use everything up and get to the end.
Speaker 1: And you'll still be spraying the non champagne fizzy white wine.
Speaker 1: So I think tire episode was cool, and I wonder
Speaker 1: how many podcasts in the Internet even devoted entire episode
Speaker 1: two tires.
Speaker 6: They're probably whole podcasts devoted to F one tires.
Speaker 1: Cold Tires would be a good name too. It's funny
Speaker 1: to think of like Caveman inventing wheel and now where
Speaker 1: we're at with these tires that you know humanity as
Speaker 1: wild man.
Speaker 2: This has been Choosing Science f one, a production of
Speaker 2: Sports Illustrated Studios, iHeart Podcast and one oh one Studio podcast.
Speaker 2: The show is hosted by Michael Costa and Tony Cowan Brown.
Speaker 2: This episode was edited, scored, and sound designed by Senior
Speaker 2: producer Jojai May Thaddle. Scott Stone is the executive producer
Speaker 2: and head of audio, and Daniel Wexman is Director of
Speaker 2: podcast Development and production Manager at one O one Studios.
Speaker 2: At iHeart Podcasts, Sean Titne is our executive producer. And
Speaker 2: a special thank you to Michelle Newman, David Glasser, and
Speaker 2: David Hootkin from one oh one Studios. For more shows
Speaker 2: from iHeart Podcasts, go visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts. And whatever you do,
Speaker 2: don't forget to rate us and tell your friends it
Speaker 2: really does mean a lot.
Speaker 1: Tony. What do we have next week?
Speaker 4: Next week on Choosing Sides one, we're going to talk
Speaker 4: about the logistition. So there's a lot of focus in
Speaker 4: F one that goes into the drivers, the speed, the money,
Speaker 4: the glitz, the glamour, the tires. Yes, and the tires
Speaker 4: all true, all good or well. But to me, one
Speaker 4: of the true marvels of this sport, and I say
Speaker 4: this dead series is its logistics. These are the true
Speaker 4: unsung heroes of this sports. It's the F one operations
Speaker 4: and logistical managers or logistics managers on the teams, but
Speaker 4: also with their partners like the HL.
Speaker 1: So we're going to devote an episode to the legit
Speaker 1: stics of F one.
Speaker 4: Yes, the traveling circus, how they get from point eight
Speaker 4: to b and they do it twenty three times a
Speaker 4: year and without fail, every single component arise on time.
Speaker 1: That's wild.
Speaker 4: If you thought the tire conversation was interesting, yeah, wait
Speaker 4: until we hear about the logistics of the sport
Speaker 2: Waiting for you,