In the wake of the rumours about the Mercedes power unit and the subsequent decision to stick to skinny tyres for 2014 …….One of our Intrepid Correspondents accidentally fell asleep in the waste bin of a conference room (don’t ask) and awoke in the middle of a secret emergency tire meeting. The following transcript comes from a recording they made on their mobile.
Mercedes: OI!! You there, Pirelli! I’m looking at making 80-100 bhp more than you were thinking, spinning wheels going into 5th. You think Silverstone was bad, wait’ll you see what happens when we start shredding tires leaving pit lane. Might want to have a rethink on the dimensions of those rears to accommodate our Massive Power.
Pirelli (sighing): I suppose you have something other than overconfidence to back that up…
Merc: (Hands over sheaves of documents)
Ferrari and Renault (giggling): Hey Merc, what’s with always bragging your numbers are bigger. Size isn’t all that matters, you’ve got to finish too, big boy, otherwise what’s the point eh?
Pirelli: Actually, gents, hate to break it to you, but his is umm…bigger. Significantly. So big we need to change the size of the rears to keep the rubber from bursting under full thrust.
Merc (laughing): Hate to say I told you so but…
Teams (winging): But we’ll have to change everything. It’ll be sooooooo much work.
Pirelli (incredulous): But everyone with a Merc engine is giving up a huge advantage if we don’t redesign the tires!!!! Seriously??!!?? I’m looking at you McLaren, you need all the help you can get at this point.
Teams (still winging): Whaaaaaa!!!!! It’s too hard!! We were almost done!!!
Pirelli (stalking off): Jesus Effing Christ talk about the inmates running the asylum. Compared to you lot even Sharknado makes sense…
Todt (apparently there the whole time without saying a word): I, your FIA President, shall now be the Deciderator. And first I must say that Driver Safety is my foremost concern, and, I shall not let the prospect of kilogram sized chunks of rubber flying at the drivers in excess of 200 kilometers per hour, deter me from doing absolutely nothing about this so I can be properly re-elected as FIA President.
Merc: That’s it, I’m out.
Renault and Ferrari (howling with laughter): Good Luck with all that “POWER” next year, too bad you won’t be able to use it!!!
Disclaimer: Please note this is a fictional piece only and no one was hurt in the writing of it…
Go On, Google Sharknado. You know you want to. 😀
This is so ridiculous it’s actually funny 😀
That’s the point…. Did you never see any of the American TV series of the same name… script writes fantasaical…
I was referring to sharknado. 😉
Aha…
Always glad to introduce my Euro pals to the joys of American commercial TV. 😉
By the way, the sequel to Sharknado has already been announced. Can’t wait. 😀
Sounds so ridiculous it is probably VERY accurate.
I would say it went more like a poker a game,
Merc – We got an Ace!
The rest – we’re playing aces low today…….
Merc – Shit!
Seriously though people, if all Merc powered teams murder a load of tyres in FP1 in Melbourne, are we going to see people refusing to race on safety grounds. This would knock out 4 teams should they decide together with their engine supplier (possibly not achievable) that the tyres just can’t cope and it’s unsafe to race. If I were Merc I would ask the teams running their unit to light up the tyres the moment they left garage and simply destroy them by the end of pit lane just to put the cat amongst the pigions and teach Pirelli ans the other teams a hard lesson! Just for fun of course!
I really really like the way you think… but it could be Michelin in next year… Either way, smoke them tyres I say… show me the 900bhp!!
A short excerpt from an interview of Pascal Couasnon (Michelin) by Le Figaro newspaper this week-end in Germany:
Q- Assuming Michelin is coming back in 2014,would there be specific requests?
A- One of the challenge is to get closer to a tyre for “top-end” cars. If F1 is ready to move to 18 inches wheel rim we’ll be running to join in. It would certainly be a strong commitment conditions.
With Michelin larger size for the rear and 18 inches all at once?
Won’t come in 2014, prob 2015. Front and rear… Hmm low profile F1 car?
Lewis Hamilton may like the 18″ low profile F1 wheels… Sure you could fit a pair of spinners … will be nice and bling 😛
18 inch rims on an F1 car? Those things would look like the bastard love childs of a monster truck and the rice boxes from the 2006 ‘VDub in da house’ ads 😀
I’m sure Lewis will love them… 😛