The Great Tyre War: Brawn GP vs Red Bull

Tyres have played a significant role in the Formula 1 season so far and will certainly have a huge bearing on the outcome of the two championships come the end of the season. After Brawn’s dominant start at the flyaway races we have seen Red Bull make massive strides and cut chunks out of their lead as the parade has moved to Europe. If Red Bull continue in the form they have shown over the last few races it is highly likely it will be one of their drivers rather than Jenson Button who is crowned world champion in October.

One of the contributing factors to Red Bull’s improvement (and Brawn’s demise) has been the way the two cars use their Bridgestone tyres. Brawn have designed a car that is very easy on its tyres and this resulted in consistent success at the races early in the year. They were able to use the softer, option tyres to greater effect without suffering from the graining that the majority of the other teams experienced and so benefited in hot conditions. The Red Bull on the other hand works its tyres a bit harder, generating more heat in them even on cold days and this has given them an advantage over Brawn in cooler weather.  This feature has allowed them to begin clawing back the deficit to Brawn and Button over the last few races due to the lower European temperatures.

However, a look at the remaining races on the calendar will not make happy reading for Red Bull. A large portion of the venues left to visit are likely to be hot races, with only one that will almost certainly not be in Belgium. Spa is only predictable in its unpredictability when it comes to the weather and the chances of a heat wave in August are pretty low. A few other races are at risk from rain, namely Japan and Italy, but there is just as much chance of it being scorching hot too. This leaves Hungary, Valencia, Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Brazil that are all likely to be run in hot temperatures.

We all know that Ross Brawn is a very intelligent individual, but he has also appeared icy cool over the last few races as others in his team have lost their heads (Rubens…) in the wake of the Red Bull catch up. Ross was obviously aware of the calendar before the season began and I believe the car was designed to treat the tyres in the way it does because Ross knew that there are more hot races than cold in the Formula 1 season. It was therefore worth sacrificing the Britains and Germanys on the calendar in order to get the edge at places like Australia, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi.

The key to the tyre debate will come this weekend at Hungary where we will find out if Red Bull’s resurgence has been overly reliant on the cooler conditions or if their upgrades have actually taken them ahead of Brawn fair and square. Whatever the outcome, we should have a much better idea of who will be lifting the title in Brazil come Sunday evening.

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