Why tyres are key on the route to F1

Formula 1 isn't the only championship where tyre degradation is one of the biggest talking points this year. Junior single seater series have often tried to mimmick what we see at the top of the tree - although in the past that usually applied to the styling of the cars.

But for 2011, GP2, GP3 and the F3 Euro Series have all adopted the idea of having tyres that can't last as long as they should - be that a race distance, or in the case of GP2's feature race, a full stint.

GP2, as expected, has the most in common with what we've seen in the first four grands prix of the season. Some drivers were getting into all sorts of trouble in Turkey last weekend, and there was lots of yellow Pirelli tape being put over tyres that were in particularly bad shape in parc ferme after the race.

Some drivers had their tyres down to the canvas by the end of the race, while Dani Clos spoke of one of his front tyres deforming "like a head was trying to come out of it" as he plummeted down the order in the closing laps on Saturday.

Signature driver Marco Wittmann has had problems

In the two categories a little further down the single seater ladder, the situation is not quite so extreme. So far drivers have had to struggle home as their grip goes away in the final few laps. But there's still scope for getting it totally wrong: champion F3 Euro Series team Signature had a nightmare in the season opener at Paul Ricard, while the likes of Valtteri Bottas and Antonio Felix da Costa looked like they were driving on a skid pan when they shot their rear tyres in GP3 last weekend. Da Costa even had a pretty frightening spin at Istanbul's fearsome Turn 8 - which he declared as the first time he's spun a car in the dry!

A by-product of all this tyre wear is that it has livened the racing up in all three championships. The GP2 races at the weekend were some of the best there have been since the glory days of the first generation car from 2005-'07, and it was all without the need for DRS and KERS. Even when tyre degradation hasn't led to wheel-to-wheel scraps, we've had the fascination of a race leader on worn rubber getting reeled in towards the end of a race.

You can see the logic of training drivers for a very specific skill that is currently vital in F1. And if it's improving the spectacle as well, then surely it's a win-win situation.

But there is a flip-side to this debate, and if anything, the counter argument is stronger at the junior levels than the case presented by those who don't like F1 2011-style.

Drivers often arrive at F3/GP3 level with only a couple of years of experience in car racing. They still have a lot to learn about how to drive a car quickly on the limit and how to work on setup with their engineers. So with those skills not yet fully honed, should managing fragile tyres really be at the top of their agendas?

In GP2, current co-championship leader Sam Bird reckons that the champion will be the driver who is able to "go the slowest, the best." Yes, there is a direct link to F1 with that theory, but surely the teams looking for the next big thing would find it of more use to know who is the quickest of the next generation? It's got to be easier to teach a fast driver to look after his tyres than to make someone who is kind to his tyres go a bit quicker.

Bird says 'go slow' tactics will pay off in GP2 this year © LAT

Is it more important to learn specific skills rather than just work on being the fastest you can be? In the F3 Euro Series at Hockenheim a few weeks ago, Roberto Merhi took two wins in the longer, tyre-wear affected races. In the first he shot away at the front, assuming that as the tyres were going to go off anyway, he might as well be down the road when they do.

He just held on to win after Marco Wittmann closed him down in the final laps, but it was tight. So a day later, he managed the gap to the cars behind throughout the race, which meant he had enough in hand to prevent anyone catching him in similar fashion in race two. In that case, you'd have to say that the tyre situation helped him develop as a driver, so perhaps it is a good idea.

A point that was made in the GP3 paddock last weekend was that the marginal tyres mean teams have to limit the amount of running they give their drivers in testing as well. It was widely accepted that considering the limited number of sets that are given out for each test day, a driver could quite easily have used up all of his tyres within the first hour if he wasn't careful.

That's not ideal for drivers that are trying to learn, as the more track time they can get the better. Testing is so limited in most categories already these days that it seems a waste that teams then have to be very careful with how much running they do on the few days they have.

So what's the conclusion here? Well, for now let's sit on the fence a little longer, because all of these categories are in the very early days of their seasons. You would expect the cream to rise to the top regardless of the circumstances, and as long as that's the case, perhaps it doesn't matter.

Taking a step back and looking at it from a pure fan's perspective, I've enjoyed the added spice that all the races have had so far this year. But the nagging feeling that junior racing shouldn't be about the business of entertainment won't go away.