hrd-hr30

And Sainz Jnr was only 0.044s slower than Dan in the STR on his first ever drive in an F1 car. That's faster than Dan was in his first drive of the RBR, with 2yrs F1 experience under his belt...

Yep. I used to run A032R and Toyo RA1 back when I was hillclimbing and sprinting. For hillclimbs you basically want to start with cold pressures set to what the tyre's hot pressure should be at sprints - depending on how much of a burnout you do, you might start the rears a pound or two lower. old semis on the front and newer ones on the back was never going to be a recipe for success. Particularly in winter at Goulburn. Not really fair to compare them to a matched set of RSRs all round. I was pretty critical of R888s when i had them, because they didn't seem to offer much grip. But they can produce good lap times if you are prepared to throw the car around. I was only a tenth faster at Lakeside when i changed to FZ201s. But the car felt much more planted on the Federals, and needed less steering angle almost everywhere. People say the R888 seem to work well on light cars. I think its more that the really light cars tend to be less powerful. R888s don't like putting power down while exiting corners in my experience. A lighter less powerful car wouldn't really test them so much in that regard.

yeah, the R888s are not in the same league as the other semis performance wise, but they are cheap and durable. I've had them recently as well.

Yep, the Achilies are not a true semi. They're in the Federal RSR, Yoko AD08, Kumho KU36 etc category. An ultra high performance road tyre that can take the abuse of track days, but will be seconds off the pace of true semis. FZ201 were good when they first appeared (I had a set), but changed a while ago and by all accounts are now rubbish. I would not buy them now. I've had bad experiences with Kumho slicks and will not buy their slicks or semis again just in case. Too many blowouts for my liking. Their performance seems pretty hit an miss too - they work well on some cars, but can be shit on others - even other fast, experienced guys. Out of your list the standout performer is the Hankook. Their 2 groove tyre is about $60 a pop cheaper if they are allowed in the things you enter. If you just want a semi that will not do anything nasty but not be on the pace of the expensive suff, the R888 or NT01s are available cheap online.

FZ201 changed a while ago - they are now absolute rubbish by all accounts. AVOID!

The Kevlar belted tyres they tested had never been used until last round at Germany. See how much advantage they got from the test! Mercedes did not get banned from the young driver test for gaining an advantage, just for undertaking an illegal test, which the FIA told both Pirelli and Mercedes they could do...

I ran about 32psi hot in my R888s on a 1250kg 180SX. But be prepared to be underwhelmed...

there's certainly better drivers out there, but for Lotus it's not so much about that... But after his strong race in Germany, Grosjean might have bought himself another year if he keeps his nose clean...

Those times are for radiant heat type of burns. Jeans aren't going to offer any protection from that. Obviously the material is also highly flame resistant, which is another big advantage over cotton IF you are ever in a firey crash and can't get out.

FIA 8856-2000 12 seconds

yeah, I'd suggest that is a very hot fire though.

look at the protection the suits offer before decideing that it's something you need... SFI Spec-----Time to Second Degree Burn in an approximation of a raging gasoline fire 3.2A/1----------------3 Seconds 3.2A/5---------------10 Seconds 3.2A/15---------------30 Seconds

Lotus have been falling behind anyway. Ferrari suffered blowouts like the rest of them. Red Bull are the ones doing the best job overall on the new tyres and they're the most outspoken critics of them. From Hungary onwards it's last year's construction with this year's compounds. The degradation issues teams had performance isues with are to do with the compounds, so it's not a total loss for Lotus or Ferrari, although the Kevlar belted tyres will run cooler which will probably help Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari. McLaren should wheel the 2012 car out regardless of what tyres are being used! Mercedes performance last weekend can't really be attributed to the controversial test - the tyres used at the test were next year's tyres and the kevlar belted tyre everyone's been testing in practice at Montreal and Silverstone, not the tyres they used in the race and which Mercedes were the first to blow up! Hardly conclusive proof they benefited from tyre testing... Those tyres will be used as an interim measure this weekend.

http://formula-one.speedtv.com/article/f1-pirellis-analysis-of-silverstone/ I have coffee on my keyboard...

I'm with Kinks. In summary Pirelli are saying everything you are doing with the tyres is wrong - camber, pressures, swapping sides with our assymetric tyre (they mean assymetric and directional). Must be alot of tyre engineers in the teams with NFI eh? The name of the game these days has been to make the tyres last during the race. I'll bet my left testie that the pressures and the cambers and even the fact teams are swapping them to the other sides, is all about maximising the tyre's life and performance over the longest period of time, and prevent overheating them or working them too hard. They're not pushing boundaries looking for maximum single lap performance, which will risk their tyres going off in the race. Everything the teams are doing with regard to setup is to take care of the tyres! It's all they ever talk about! I'm not buying the Pirelli line.

yep, well the obvious solution is just to design, build and develop the car to be light years ahead of everyone else then. Then its easy and no real achievement. But Vettel has had the same level of dominance for the past few years and he didn't break the record. It was broken by a much slower car trundling around taking care of tyres finishing as low as tenth... why? everyone has to contend with Grosjean!

points to P10 is the big factor. Lotus one of the top 4 teams this year, and have been in top 5 since Kimi came back. All he has to do is finish really. Schumacher's record run of points finishes started in 2001 when they only scored the top six. It was the same all the way through 2002. And finished in the first year they changed to the top 8 finishers getting points. Kimi finished 10th as recently as Monaco, before he even equalled the record. NFI if there were others outside the top 6 or 8, but he's still got it alot easier than it was back then. That's before you factor in that they are really only driving around at 8 tenths for the past three years - makes retirments or crashes less likely. As does DRS, because it is so easy to pass.

a record that's easier to break than ever, it must be said...

take me back to 2010 pls. Proper tyres, no DRS, more overtaking than we've had since the early 90s. And it was real overtaking. Not handing out free pass tickets on the straights. Shame they had to go and mess it all up when they already had it right.

yeah, if taking out the leader and 3 other cars from the places they deserved makes a race awesome... Perez's tyre almost took out Alonso as well. That would have been even more awesome. Vettel and Rosberg (and probably many others we haven't heard about) had tyres with visible damage and almost at the point of failure at one of their stops. it may have made a spectacle out of the race, but it only hurt the actual racing and had far too big an influence on who finished where. This headline sums it up nicely: Rosberg lucks in to victory as tyre failures wreak havoc with race

time for Pirelli and the FIA to stop this 'tyres designed to degrade to improve the racing' nonsense, and just make a proper f**king race tyre.

Full decision, no subscriptions... http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/press_release/file/(IT-2013-01)-Decision%20(EN).pdf

no, that's what happens when FIA signs a contract with a tyre supplier permitting testing despite the sporting code banning it, then tells a team "OK, you can go to the test with the 2013 cars as long as Pirelli are running the test" and then backflips when other teams complain...

CAMS general Requirements Schedule I - Safety Harnesses / Window Nets http://docs.cams.com.au/Manual/GeneralRequirements/GQ10_Schedule_I.pdf

With a 4pt harness, make sure you pay attention to the location of the lap belt mounts. You need to keep the lap belt down over the boney part of your hips/pelvis when the shoulder straps are tightened. To achieve that, the mounts generally need to be alot further forward than the factory lap sash mounts are. Generally 20-30deg behind vertical is the greatest angle you can use.