So one manufacturer has four different tyre hardnesses for F1 but is only allowed to use two in any one race, to ‘give an exciting finish”., and ensure that team tactics play a part.
It was better when there were two manufacturers, more combinations. It’s all a bit artificial isn’t it? What resemblance does this have to the real world, where you can pick from hundreds of different tyres, not knowing how “hard” they are.
You can only rely on tyre surveys from real people, and acquire a bit of knowledge on how the tyre people achieve these different compounds. Our blog (http://tyres.wordpress.com) gives a bit of background on this. We have recently posted an article about tyres and Formula 1 (http://tyres.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/tyres-and-formula-1)!