Why Schumacher's tyre gripes are good news for F1

So Michael Schumacher was the first to crack. Amid ever-mounting evidence that tyres - or, more importantly, Formula 1 teams' ability to understand and exploit them - is now becoming the key factor in deciding races, the Mercedes driver's outburst against Pirelli was the first sign that not everybody is happy with the way the racing is panning out this year.

With four different cars winning the first four races, it's nigh on impossible to state which team or driver is the current favourite for the world championship. McLaren's front-row lock-outs in Australia and Malaysia seem distant memories now judging by recent races, with Lotus, Red Bull and Mercedes all outperforming Woking's best in the past fortnight.

Further confusing the picture is that Fernando Alonso, in a Ferrari that the team readily confesses is well below par, is just 10 points off the lead of the drivers' championship. This time last year he was 52 behind.

As each race goes on, it appears that it's neither car developments nor driver brilliance that's deciding which team/driver combination comes out on top; it's whether or not people can get themselves into the right tyre operating window.

But has it become too much, and is Schumacher actually right? Is 2012 simply turning in to a rubber lottery - with the outcome of an afternoon dependent on track and weather conditions suiting one car over another?

There is some evidence to support that view. Look at the way McLaren was in a class of its own in Australia; the cooler than expected and damp conditions in Malaysia favoured Ferrari and Sauber; the chilly China suited Mercedes while the hotter and abrasive Bahrain was perfect for Red Bull and Lotus. A few degrees of temperature change here and there looks to be the difference between hero and zero.

Drivers have certainly experienced the bad side of the tyre situation: with a few frustrations at the way they cannot get their cars to perform anywhere near where they should be on track if the tyres are not operating properly. Check out Button's struggles in Malaysia, when his tyres cooled as he got trapped in traffic, and Schumacher's inability to make progress in Bahrain that led to his post-race outburst.

Lotus man Alan Permane (r) says you can't alter tyre temperatures with set-up © XPB

Team principals, engineer and drivers are all in agreement that getting on top of the tyres is now vital in this increasingly complex season. But the problem is that tyres are such a black art form that to deliver on that understanding is not the work of a moment.

Lotus trackside operations director Alan Permane was pretty clear about that when we chatted about tyres in China - and more specifically what teams can do to get themselves into that magic window.

"If anyone tells you they can alter the tyre temperature with set-up they are bullshitting," said the straight-talking Permane. "Anyone who says that they know how to change their degradation is bullshitting.

"Everyone would love to do that and people think they can do, to some extent. Mercedes have a quick car and a lot of clever people, but look at their race pace in the first two races. It was awful. If it was easy, they would have done it.

"We spent all of last year trying to stop our rear degradation and it really is ever so difficult. You can play around with suspension geometries, and it's relatively straightforward to design a different geometry, but how do you test it? It's so difficult in-season. You get one set of tyres in P1 and two for P2, so how do you measure the difference between two sessions with changing conditions?"

Permane's comments suggest that getting on top of tyres is going to be a struggle for some, but Pirelli is adamant that it's only a matter of time before the best teams start doing just that.

And the increased importance of tyres this year is not actually anything to do with what Pirelli has done. Look at the situation closely and you realise it's a combination of the fact that the teams are so close together in car performance that the few tenths gained or lost in getting those tyres up to speed is now crucial for positions - whereas last year those differences were not so important because the cars were more spread out.

Schumacher was a frustrated man in Bahrain © LAT

There is also the fact that the change in regulations - and the effective ban on exhaust-blown diffusers - has resulted in less rear downforce. This means the rear tyres are having less energy pushed through them - so are therefore harder to get operating well. A slight increase in sensitivity to temperatures means the tyres are much more marginal in getting into the right window, too.

A tyre lottery would suggest that there is no element of skill involved in the racing and that we are seeing uncompetitive cars luck-in to excellent results simply as the result of good fortune. No-one could argue that any of the four winners so far did not deserve their success.

Pirelli's Paul Hembery says the evidence of the first few races is not of a lottery - but of clear engineering reasons as to why each event turned out the way it did.

"If you take the Melbourne street race, I don't think there was any strange result there," he said. "If you take the rain race in Malaysia , that in itself makes it a difficult race in its nature. In Shanghai and Bahrain the car that got pole position won, so you could say the best car/driver line-up won.

"As long as everyone has the same challenge then you have to say the best drivers and engineers win. I don't think lottery comes into it - because the cars at the front are there for a reason: they are very competitive.

"The biggest challenge this year with the cars so close together is that overtaking becomes more of a premium and more of a challenge, and that in itself will be something that makes track position more important than last year."

Perhaps the teams will take a while to get on top of it, and perhaps there will be more Schumacher-like frustrations for other drivers, but we must remember that F1 is not about making life easy for its competitors.

Ask any engineer what his perfect weekend will be and he will be in agreement with his driver. Start from pole position, lead every lap, make two pitstops at pre-arranged times without any stress, then tour around to take the chequered flag and bag 25 points.

But that's not what us lovers of the sport want. We want unpredictability, we want races that are only decided in the closing stages, we want to go into each weekend without a clue about who's going to win, or even how the race is going to be won.

Pirelli may be ruffling some feathers at the moment, and causing a few headaches in F1 factories, but that's no bad thing. We should all be happy that F1 is so thrilling this year: even Mr Schumacher.