Introduction to Tires and Setups in F1

Hello everyone! With this article, we, as the UAA F1 Club, will introduce you to tires and setups in F1. First, the tires. Tires are one of the most important components of a Formula 1 car as without them the car would not be able to move. Since 2011, Italian tire manufacturer Pirelli has been the sole tire supplier in F1. However, in the past, many tire manufacturers such as Bridgestone, Michelin, Goodyear, Dunlop, and Firestone have supplied tires for F1.

The characteristics of F1 tires vary greatly from regular car tires. For example, in F1, tires without any grooves, called “slicks”, are used in dry conditions. This maximizes the contact surface with the tires and the track and, therefore, increases grip. In comparison, a regular car tire has grooves to allow wet-weather driving without changing tires.

Examples of a F1 tire, notice the lack of grooves

Also, the rear tires of an F1 car are larger than the front tires, while a regular car has 4 equal-sized tires. Besides, F1 tires are filled with pure nitrogen instead of air, as nitrogen is more predictable when it comes to maintaining pressure and is devoid of moisture, which can cause oxidation. Nitrogen is lighter than air, too, which has an effect on the pace of the car. Furthermore, the pressure in F1 tires is half of a regular tire, due to an F1 car weighing around half a regular car. In addition, F1 tires need to be heated via tire blankets and must be kept at an optimal temperature window for efficient operation¹, unlike regular tires. These different characteristics of F1 tires are necessary in order to be able to reach speeds upward of 300 kph and withstand G-forces of around 5 to 6 g routinely, crucial requirements when it comes to extracting maximum performance out of the car.

An F1 car with tire blankets fitted

F1 has five different dry compounds, out of which three are chosen by Pirelli for use in each Grand Prix weekend. These compounds, from hardest to softest, are called “C1, C2, C3, C4, C5”.² For each Grand Prix weekend, the three chosen dry compounds available are called soft, medium, and hard. Each car is allocated a specific number of these tires for each Grand Prix weekend. In all dry races, each car must use at least two dry compounds. The different compounds can be differentiated via the coloring in their sidewalls (the area surrounding the rims). Soft tires have red sidewalls, medium tires have yellow sidewalls, and hard tires have white sidewalls.

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1. F1 is planning on banning tire blankets for 2024.

2. In 2023, a new tire named “C1” will be introduced and the current C1 tire will be renamed to “C0”.

Soft, medium, and hard tire compounds

Softer tires are capable of producing more pace as they are able to conform to the surface of the track better, increasing grip and allowing faster cornering. Harder tires, meanwhile, maintain their shapes more rigidly, reducing grip. However, this feature of harder tires makes them more durable than softer tires, which allows cars to maintain their pace for longer. In contrast, cars with softer tires experience a drop-off in pace sooner. These varying features of different tire compounds in F1 make tire choice and management one of the most crucial things to get right during a race for success.

Although, you may be wondering: How does F1 race in the wet, then? As stated before, dry tires have no grooves. This means that these tires are not capable of dissipating water sufficiently to be used in wet weather conditions. This is why F1 also uses two different wet weather compounds to mitigate this issue when necessary. These tires have grooves and can dissipate enough water to allow racing in the wet.

For damp surfaces, the intermediate tire is used. Intermediate tires can be differentiated from slick tires via the green coloring on their sidewalls and the presence of grooves. These grooves allow the dissipation of water out of the tires, and they function in a similar fashion to the grooves in a shoe. However, the grooves in intermediate tires are not too deep as they do not need to clear that much water. If more water needs to be cleared in case of greater, torrential rain, full wet tires with much larger grooves can be used. These tires have blue sidewalls and are capable of clearing 85 liters of water at 300kph PER SECOND. However, these tires aren’t used that often as sessions tend to be red-flagged (suspended) in such conditions (2021 Belgian GP, 2022 Monaco GP, etc.) Most of the time, intermediate tires that have more surface to contact the track are faster than full wet tires anyway, so teams tend to avoid using full wets as much as possible.

Intermediate and full wet tires, notice the presence of grooves for water dissipation

These days, F1 utilizes wheel covers in order to reduce drag and prevent turbulence for other cars. When a tire rotates, it causes vortices that can alter the way the aerodynamic components of the following car function negatively. This is one of the reasons why getting close to another F1 car and following it for long periods is very difficult. To solve, or at least reduce this issue, wheel covers were reintroduced to F1 this season to reduce turbulent air and make following other cars easier. These wheel covers cover rims that are 18 inches wide, up from 13 inches last year. This makes F1 tires resemble regular car tires more closely.

From now on, you are aware of the basics of tires in F1. In this half of the article, I will explain the role of different setups in F1.

In F1, setups refer to the adjustments made to a car to optimize its behavior. There are many factors that can affect the characteristics of a setup, such as suspension stiffness, rake, ride height, toe, camber, etc. Nailing all of these factors is crucial in creating a package that can do well in both qualifying and races. Just as a basic introduction to the complex world of setups in F1, I will be explaining the most visible and obvious of these factors: wing shape and size.

Wing sizes are a factor of setups that vary greatly from track to track. In a track like Monaco, with many slow corners, large wings for increased downforce and therefore greater speed in corners are preferred. Meanwhile, in a track with long straights like Monza, small wings for reduced drag and therefore greater speed in straights are preferred.

Different rear wings for different tracks, notice the different sizes of the wings

There is an anomaly, though. Thanks to the thin air in Mexico City due to its high altitude, teams are able to run large wings without enduring much of a penalty in speed in the long straights of Mexico. This is why the top speed record in F1 in a race has been recorded in Mexico (2016 Mexican GP, Valtteri Bottas, 372.5 kph), despite the large wings used there.

Setups can vary even between drivers of the same team due to their different preferences. These setups can determine whether a driver can extract the greatest amount of pace from a car or not as not all setups are capable of producing the same pace.

Differently shaped wings for different drivers

And with that, we have reached the end of the article. We hope you enjoyed reading this article, and that you will look forward to more F1 content from us in the future.