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The FIA World Council has decided to scrap plans that would have seen the end of tyres being pre-heated in blankets before being sent out on the cars. There has been a lot of talk recently about the rules and regulations for next season - both technical and sporting - and the FIA have been holding meetings this week to iron out a few things. However, the TWG voiced concern over difficulties in controlling minimum tyre pressures without warmers and along with the realisation that the teams would use blankets in testing anyway, null and voiding the cost-saving they had hoped for, the plans were shelved. Continue Reading

The last time slick tyres were raced in Formula One was that infamous European Grand Prix in 1997. It will be remembered more for incident involving Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve than anything else, but the race is etched in my mind as the day smooth rubber left the sport. The reason for the change came down to the FIA wanting to reduce the cornering speed of the cars, and at the time they chose the tyre route. Since then though, the FIA have worked closely with the Technical Working Group to come up with better ways of controlling the ever-escalating speeds, centering their efforts on the aerodynamics more and more. Continue Reading

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa set the pace today at the first inter-season test session at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya. With slick tyres bolted onto his car, the Brazilian driver managed to set a time 2.7s faster than second-placed Alex Wurz, also on slick tyres. The running of different boots is to enable Bridgestone to gain some insight into how the tyres behave, the smooth rubber potentially making making a comeback to Formula One next year. Only nine drivers took part today, but more are expected to be on track tomorrow and Wednesday. McLaren fielded Pedro De La Rosa, who also tore around Montmelo on slicks, but could only manage the third fastest lap of the day. Continue Reading

With slicks hopefully making a comeback next year, Formula One’s sole tyre supplier Bridgestone have been trying to alleviate fears that the loss of tyre-warmers next season may affect the pace of the cars when commencing their warm-up lap. The issues surrounding the differential in speed between a warm slick and a cold slick came about after the teams conducted some preliminary tests at Jerez last year. David Coulthard voiced concern at the time, and the laptimes set between hot and cold tyres varied by as much as several seconds. Continue Reading

Formula One teams will once again test slick tyres on their cars in April, a repeat of the tests carried out by all teams in December to allow Bridgestone to assess them on a modern F1 machine. Slicks haven’t been used in the sport since 1998 when the FIA decided to make the cars run on grooved tyres in a bid to reduce cornering speeds. Since then however, aerodynamic limitations have been imposed which in theory should do this and the result being a possible return to smooth rubber. Continue Reading