Tyre warmers?

I know FIA tries to ban tyre blankets from F1.. and drivers see this as safety issue. Also that they are not allowed in Formula Junior and GP2. But are they allowed in GT3 for example? What series allows them, outside of F1?

Do you guys use the blankets in AC, or consider them "cheating"?

 

They are still used in blancpain GT series according to their regulations pdf:

The use of a heating cupboard for pre-heating the tyres is authorised on the following conditions:
a. It must fit into a parallelepiped of 4 m x 2m x 1.5 m. 34 BLANCPAIN GT SERIES 2016 Sporting Regulation S02
b. No part of the cupboard can be situated inside the pit garage, on the pit lane or on the grid.
c. There must only be one system for heating the interior of the cupboard. It must be a forced air system and must run on fuel oil, electricity or gas. The cupboard must be made from non-flammable materials.
d. The transportation of tyres must be carried out without thermal protection. Other tyre heating devices remain forbidden.

Dont know about other series, but make sense for GT3 races at least. I dont like when they are used for vintage race cars or road cars though.

On a similar note, are those tyre warmers any indication of the optimum temp/pressure for the tires? I mean, if I'm in the pits with tyre warmers on, the tyres pressure and temps are at their optimum value for this specific tyre category I guess?

 

Check the sections about tyres, tyre heating devices in the sporting regulations of popular racing series. Tyre heaters are common.

Edit: Here, a mixed bag:

http://www.fia.com/regulation/category/110

http://www.fia.com/regulation/category/118

http://www.racb.com/fileadmin/libra...eries_2016_Sporting_Regulations_S02_FINAL.pdf

http://www.dtm.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/2016-DTM-Reglement-sportlich-englisch.pdf

/2016/2016%20CAMS%20Australian%20GT%20Championship%20Sporting%20and%20Technical%20Regulations%20-%20Version%203.pdf

http://www.adac-motorsport.de/docs/...7/ADAC Formel 4 2016 Sporting Regulations.pdf

http://www.gtopen.net/contenuti/fil...7 - GTOpen art.23.16 tires heating aprob.pdf

http://gt4series.com/wp-content/upl...-European-Series-Sporting-Regulations-S02.pdf

http://files.world-challenge.com/rules-regulations/2016_PWC_TechRegs.pdf

 

While they might be very common, it's a lot more fun to drive without them and start on Green grip. This way you can feel your tyres warm up and feel the track gain grip. Makes for a much more dynamic session.

 

for the server i admin i've always set them on for the 70's F1 cars and all race cars more modern than those. off for all street cars and older race cars.

i think you could make the arguement that there are no warm up laps in AC but i like to mix it up. it would be nice to have a server option to do a formation lap to get some heat in the tyres, although in AC braking doesnt seem to do very much for tyre temp at all so would probably pull away from the lights with cold tyres still.

 

A "factory" setting for tire warmers would come in handy honestly.

That way we can have "on/off" self explanatory, work like they do now.
And another setting where series that do have access to it get it and others don't.

 

Tire warmers were invented in the early '80s, so if you feel like being realistic there's your cutoff. Don't use them for any car made before ~'85. Or do: you can just as well simulate driving an older car in present-day conditions. Knock yourselves out.

I never use them though, for the reasons @NightEye brought up.

 

:O google lied to me!!... or i remembered it wrong.

 

Why not factory settings for tyre blankets like traction control and ABS?

 

Well, how would factory settings work when it depends on the series you race in? Not all series people can race GT3 cars in prohibit tyre heaters for example.

 

I pretty much never use them. It is not for fun, per se. It's more satisfying to start with cold tires; to have to warm them up. The grip level is more dynamic while they are getting warm, so it also takes more awareness to drive on them. It can sharpen your skills a bit. I like that.

 

Well, "official" credit for tire warmers is given in 1985 at the Brands Hatch GP, according to my poking around a couple months ago when we were curious about this question in relation to the XJ13. There were early versions of the concept (using stolen hotel blankets!) as early as '73 so I guess you could make an argument that it's at least plausible during that interim decade.

 

BtW, does AI use blankets, if you don't? Or if you do?

 

heheheh what did they do, light em on fire!

 

The story as I've heard it was at the '73 or '74 Canadian GP (held in September) McLaren set up a shed in the pits to warm the tires, and then used 'borrowed' blankets from the team hotel to wrap them on the grid to keep them warm.

It's kind of a wonder that it didn't catch on for over a decade after that, honestly.

 

They were banned in the ALMS and are currently banned in the USCC...just depends on the series really.

 

Like others said, I'd quite enjoy a 'factory' setting for these too. Right now its something I leave off, purely because I'm too lazy to change it every time I change cars, and the majority of cars 'factory' setting would be off, so thats where I leave it.

Also, different blanket temperatures to also be included with the Factory setting would be even better; as today's F1 tyre warmers are kept at 110C (well, 110C for up to 1 hour before use, and a three hour 80C cycle before hand).

 

Can't say for sure, but it seems they use the same settings as you and blankets on/off counts for everybody.

Just did a quick test with AI.
I couldn't get the tyre temps of opponents live or in replays, but the Nissan GT3 shows the tyre pressures on the central dashboard-display.
Without blankets the pressures were 25-26psi and after half a lap at Imola went up to 30psi. With blankets the pressures started at 32-33psi and stayed in a range of 31-33psi.

So I'd say blankets for all or nobody.

 

I don't use tyre blankets at all offline. I prefer starting with cold tyres, which gives me the satisfaction of improving lap times during practice

 

Yes, I also like to warm up the tires myself, I think it's more fun this way.

Sometimes I use blankets for setup testing, because I can feel the differences better that way and there's no need for 1-2 laps to get them to temperature.