Firstly, I agree that a tyre war in Formua One will add an entertainment factor to the sport as it is another external factor which may spice up the racing. However I feel that a tyre war in Formula One is not the way forward. With Pirelli’s contract set to expire at the end of this season, some team owners feel that bringing in a tyre war would be good for Formula One. However, the FIA have been very quick to shoot down these proposed ideas saying that they did not want a tyre war back in Formula One.
Personally I thing that this is correct. This is because a tyre is an external factor. They are not made by the teams, which means that if there is a better tyre on the grid than the other; than all the cars that are on that tyre will essentially have an unfair advantage. Therefore I feel this will undermine the efforts of the engineers in the teams that are on the tyre which is on the losing end of the war. Formula One has had tyre wars before. The most recent one was from 2001 and 2005 which was contested between Bridgestone and Michelin. Ferrari where on the Bridgestone tyre whereas their main rivals where on the Michelin tyre and Ferrari ran away with both constructors and driver’s championship. However, I do feel that Ferrari still would of been as strong in those years anyway but the thing is would they of been as competitive as they where with the Bridgestone tyres.
Another aspect that may become less important are pit stops. This is because these tyre manufactures will try to out compete each other in durability. If some of you remember the Firestone tyres that could have gone the whole race without needing the pit stops. Pit stops have become a crucial part of the championships over the last couple seasons.
This has been evident over the last couple of races with teams breaking pit stop records with Red Bull currently holding it with 2.05s. However with a tyre war pit stops may become less important as there may only be one pit stop in a Grand Prix so all the hard work the teams have done in order to perfect their pit stop regime.
So to sum up. I feel that a tyre war will slightly reduce the entertainment value slightly at the moment as the tyres are giving a very good element of strategy so far this season. On the other hand the element of strategy will be lost if Formula One was to go back into a tyre war.