Bridgestone: Formula One Tire Supplier

@ clarkma5:

your comment is hugely ignorant. if it was primarily about the drivers then based on the first 7 races Button was the best. However, by looking at the remaining races we can see that Button was obviously not the best, based on the relatively disappointing performances after the first 7.

now someone might wonder why Button got such a strong start, but was unable to maintain the momentum of the first 7 races? the answer is that Honda/Brawn had a huge advantage in the double diffuser and designing their first iteration of the car around it. an F1 car is designed as a whole unit. while it is assembled in pieces (front wing, side pods, engine cover, rear wing, etc.) it is a whole aerodynamic unit. when the cars are designed at the beginning of the year, it is much easier to change the dynamics of the car as a whole than during the season (especially this year due to the testing ban).

because Brawn began the year with a double diffuser and designed everything around the double diffuser, they had a huge advantage in the first 7 races, but also in the development race that takes place all season. they got so far ahead that the other teams, no matter how much money and time they put into it could not catch up.

while many teams did come out with double diffusers in latter races, they have not been able to fully exploit the possibilities of downforce (the diffuser accounts for approximately 50% of total downforce).

if your belief that the driver has so much to do with the success of the car, then Button will be at the front of the pack again next year, even after Ferrari, Mclaren, and Renault have had all of the offseason (and for Ferrari half of this season) to develop and tap the unknown possibilities of the double diffuser.

i am willing to wager that after this season if Button stays at Brawn, he will not be at the front of the pack and will instead languish with Nico Rosberg in the middle.

p.s.
another sign that Button had little to do with the success of Brawn is that not too many top teams seem willing to take him from Brawn. Brawn is unable to offer him money like Ferrari, Mclaren, Renault, and Toyota, but he seems to be at Brawn next year, as long as Kimi goes to Mclalren, which he probably will.

SPOT ON jackson!...except for Nico being mid-pack next year. If McLaren signs him because Mercedes-Benz wants a German driver, he will do better than Heikki and doing rather well.

Nico should be going to Brawn next year. Toyota has offered Kimi a spot, but he has said that he only wants to go to Mclaren, except Mclaren has said that he will have to do promo ads, but Kimi doesn't want to, so that is the hold up.

if Mercedes wants a german driver they will have one at brawn with Nico.

the next 2-3 weeks should be interesting in regards to the driver market (i really want to see who USF1 choses).

Nice work Jackson, its great to read comments from people who actually understand F1. Whats with these promo ads and Kimi? I thought the hold up was with money? Toyota was never a factor for Kimi as there was no way they would pay him what he wanted. I'm sure they made an offer but Kimi probably never even saw it because it wasn't close to what he was looking for. But Mclaren really is his only option because of money. Do you think if Mclaren went with Nico that kimi would go to Brawn? It a long shot especially after coming out and saying "its really only Mclaren".

In the past Toyota has languished in the middle of the pack, which many people seem to mean that Toyota never spent much money on F1. however, quite the opposite is true. in 2006 it was thought that Toyota spent the most of all the teams in total expenditures. Also, at one point Toyota had a new materials lab to develop new materials for use in F1. these labs were REALLY REALLY expensive, but Toyota operated one anyways.

the real problem with Toyota (and it has become evident this year) may not have lied with the car, but with the drivers. Glock and Truill have driven the car to success sometimes, and finished at the back others. due to the fact that Toyota has decided not to keep the drivers around it shows that they are serious about finding two drivers who actually want to drive to the limits every weekend.

If Toyota really wants Kimi, then they can have him. while Kimi says he won't go to Toyota, and would instead go into rallying, i don't see him saying no to $55+ million a year.

i have heard that the issue with Mclaren is that they want Kimi to do 4 promo days a year where he does adds and appears to talk to sponsors etc. However, Kimi isn't too interested in doing these days, and they are trying to get him out of some or all of those days.

I don't think Kimi would go to brawn, as they cannot pay him near enough. although, that said i think that his current $50 million at Ferrari is slightly overrated for him. i would think that he is worth more around 35-40 million, but he has done a fantastic job with a retched Ferrari car.

Alright, Brawn got a strong start to the season (I still say Button took huge advantage of that, beyond just what the car has to offer...he's a driver who, when given a good machine, REALLY kicks butt) but the second half was definitely more of a case of driver versus driver. I don't believe this is all a "double diffuser" issue, there are other issues here. Red Bull, for instance, was quick to be second-best despite being a single-diffuser team early in the season. Then, of course, they went to a double diffuser and didn't see huge gains from it due to suspension packaging issues that had to be sorted out as the season went forward, and as those pieces fell into place Red Bull wound up with one of the fastest cars on the grid most of the time. Brawn was then left with the second half of the season with a heavier car than pretty much everyone else, at least among those in with a shot at the top prize, dragging them down. Despite that, the car used its tires well and worked very well for Rubens, while Button had probably found that the car had been developed away from him, particularly in terms of one-lap pace.

No matter how you slice it, the driver is a major performance decider for all these cars. Even if you have to put the drivers in the context of the vehicles they drive, which I would say you do, you cannot remove drivers from the equations. If you don't believe that, explain Kovaleinen vs. Hamilton, Grosjean vs. Alonso, Rosberg vs. Nakajima, etc. etc. etc...different drivers get different things out of the same cars, often to the point of one driver claiming a grid spot on the front two rows and the other languishing mid-pack or lower. That was my point, jackson.

As for whether Brawn will be a title threat next season, I don't know. The new no-refuelling regulations and narrower front tires are going to drastically alter weight balance vs. grip balance...as opposed to the 2009 regulations, which were unprecedented in what they did to car balance. With slick tires at full width and the weight of KERS pushing yet more weight over the front wheels, the challenge of 2009 was moving weight rearward to come closer to the classic 40/60 weight split expected of formula cars. However, McLaren's B-spec car, running a new wheelbase to push weight rearward, used an astonishing 48/52 weight distribution to achieve pole and race-winning form. It's unprecedented, and it's also a one-year fluke of the regulations. Now, I can see that going two ways for 2010 now...1) chassis design returns to something more recognizable, thus favoring the teams who ran big before 2009 (McLaren, Ferrari, etc.) and restoring the old pecking order to the grid. However, with enough weight added and the 2009 aero regs still controlling, I could also see 2) yet another new hierarchy, with the teams with good 2009 aero having an upper-hand in early season conditions.

I don't know, we'll have to see how 2010 pans out, but I think Brawn has a good likelihood of being at or near the top again, and I think Button has enough talent to see them through, with Rosberg as a strong wingman. Let us not forget that they will be able to design their 2010 chassis with the Mercedes engine spec'd from day 1 instead of having to slip it in in December, and they will also have full Mercedes support in 2010, which can only help their budget and their development efforts.

My personal belief is that with the refuelling era now ending, with budgets being slashed everywhere, and Brawn and Button as world champions (as well as Williams rising, Red Bull becoming a true title threat with two great drivers, Force India emerging as a mid-pack team, the inclusion of new teams for next year, etc.) we're seeing a swing away from the last decade of manufacturer team dominance toward a new era of independent teams controlling the championship. But once again, we'll have to see, because none of us know for sure.

Also, jackson, I think you are kinda thick if you can believe that Toyota's problems are its drivers. Toyota's problems lie almost entirely within its management...it's not Trulli's fault that John Howett seems to have no respect at all for Jarno, for instance. Toyota is a team who shows up one weekend and their car does great and they say "we don't know why our car did great". And then next weekend they show up and struggle and they say "we don't know why we struggled". There's a reason that Toyota has been in F1 since 2002 and had a larger budget than any other team and not come up with results...despite building and testing an entire chassis (The TF101) before they even entered competition with their second car, the TF102. No team has ever invested like that into F1 development, and it has gotten them nowhere.

Why? Because Toyota are determined to run their F1 program like they run the rest of the company under their Toyota corporate philosophy and it's hugely bureaucratic and severely unsuited for the F1 paddock, where the ability to quickly adapt and to gather as much knowledge as possible is of prime importance. Who on earth even runs the Toyota F1 team? Howett is team principal, except he isn't, because Tadashi Yamashina is team principal. Howett appears to be the one who runs it on a day to day basis but there have been several occasions where Yamashina has said something and Howett has simply been unaware. And then you have the disconnect between a management board in Japan (who doles out budgets to their operations every November 15th, leaving their F1 team in a weak position to negotiate for the best drivers ANYWAY, on top of everything else) and a development team in Cologne, Germany.

And they have the audacity to blame their drivers! There's a very, very good reason why Kimi couldn't even be bothered to drive for Toyota even when they tried to pile money upon him, because it's pretty common knowledge in the F1 paddock that Toyota is a team where money and talent go in and not a whole lot comes out. Glock and Trulli are both strong drivers, capable of winning races regularly in the right machinery, but Toyota is incapable of delivering strong machinery on any consistent basis through the fault of their own internal problems. It's unfortunate that Trulli has used up his best years at Toyota, while Glock has the oppurtunity to get out and still have a strong career somewhere else. I think it would be better for both of them to leave Toyota.

Had it not been for Honda's heavy investment into the new car, Button would not have done nearly as well as he did in the beginning of the season. Brawn choosing Mercedes was a good choice, but the Honda had the chance to be really good anyway because of the immense amount of development that Honda put into it before sadly pulling out of F1. Had Ferrari or McLaren had the same level of car at the beginning of the year Button would not have won six of the first seven races and I question whether he would have won even one race. I have always considered Button to be a mid-pack driver at best, but he did surprise me. With a better than mid-pack car, after the first seven races, he did score some podiums and was a consistent points finisher...that is what he is at best now. The big boys caught up and the results were evident that it was not the driver as much as it was the car. Vettel is champion material, he is incredibly talented. Webber on the other hand is a mid-pack driver at best, and because the Red Bull car is so good, he's able to do better than he ever has in his career. I think had DC not retired then he would have gotten a win (or maybe two) this year. Look at Fisi...the FI car has gotten much better, and at Spa he should have very well won it. Now the FI cars are qualifying higher than they have before and are looking promising for 2010.

The narrower tires and no refueling should not hinder the Brawn cars as much as their driver lineup and the progress of the other cars on the field. Brawn does not have the money the manufacturer-supported cars have (McLaren is partially owned by Mercedes-Benz, it's doubtful that Brawn will become the official Mercedes-Benz team), and thus the development of the car has slowed down heavily. He's a very bright engineer so he'll figure out how to adjust the tiny things, but he needs to find competitive speed and that may be tough next year, especially if Nico does sign with McLaren making another driver competing for podiums on a regular basis.

Brawn had a huge advantage at the beginning of the year with their car, because Honda admitted to themselves that their previous chassis was horrible, so they quit working on it, and spent 15 months on the current one. Ferrari and Mclaren however both were developing their old cars up to Brazil last year.

RBR did not run a double diffuser, but at the beginning of the year their car's rear wing endplates extended down to diffuser level and created the effect of a diffuser that was 1.5x bigger.

as for toyota look at the results this week, and last. Kobayashi did an amazing job at Interlagos (even though he finished 1 spot out of the points, in his first race at a track he had never raced at, and one that is VERY challenging) and this week (he beat Trulli by 1 spot, and qualified 6 spots ahead of him). hopefully the Toyota board sees what their F1 operation is capable with good drivers and continues to fund it. after the performances of Kobayashi, they should give him a seat nest year, and then sign another driver that is good like Heidfeld, who has done the best he can with the worst car on the grid.

This season of F1 was very interesting. With so many changes such as: new Brown’s team, double diffusers, Massa’s accident, punishment of Renault, drivers changes and finally Mosley clearing his chair to Todt. I won’t be surprised if I had forgotten to list more changes, but expect the next season to be even more worth following. That new race track in Abu Dabi is amazing, by the way.
With Alonso and Massa both in Ferrari, Lotuses on a grid, USF1 (which is still a mystery to me), Kubica in Renault (with two years of probation for Renault) and Kimi most likely with McLaren. I can’t wait to see the next season. Does any one know if Sebastian Loeb will be racing F1 next season? At least there were some speculations. http://www.autoevolution.com/news/sebastien-loeb-looking-forward-to-f1-debut-awaits-offer-10614.html
Oh, and does any one know who will race for USF1 and whose engines will they use?

i know that they Torro Rosso tried to race Loeb at Abu Dhabi, but FIA wouldn't grant him a superlicense due to his inexperience in open wheeled cars. i dont know that he would be ruled out for 2010, but the FIA would want to see some significant testing from him before he was allowed on the grid.

also, USF1 is going to run Cosworth engines next year, along with all of the other new teams, and Williams.

Cosworth is a good company, they've been in business for over 50 years if I'm not mistaken. They can make a good engine. But who's working on a car's aerodynamic, weight, suspension and transmission and many other stuff. Does USF1 has a complete functioning team? It is about half a year left for the next F1 season.

Bridgestone has actually just announced that 2010 is their last season as tire supplier to F1.

And jackson, Button's still a great driver...his wonderful podium run in Abu Dhabi was a testament to that, despite the Brawn car really having pretty midpack pace at this point in the season (albeit being pretty well-suited to Abu Dhabi). I hate to see the drivers marginalized, they are hugely hugely talented and different drivers bring different things to the table.

Bridgestone withdraws from F1 after 2010 and Rubens confirmed at Williams alongside Nico Hulkenberg. This not long after the completion of Abu Dhabi. This off season should be fairly spectacular.

As for the Loeb rumor of moving to F1, he has stated his commitment to Citroen for 2010 unless there is some absurd buy-out of his contract, and it seems that the only team interested in signing Loeb is STR which is where dominant drivers from other series' go to kill their F1 career hopes (like Bordais).

This is certainly one of the more interesting and insightful flame wars than what you normally read through. Dare I say a gentlemanly flame war?