They look balloon-like to me, much higher profile than performance road cars. Is it an illusion or is there a reason they aren’t low profile?

I thought low profile tyres were more about looks than performance.

wider tyres have a lower rolling resistance at the same pressures at the expense of frontal area (aero).

I assume with all the other aero features of f1 cars the frontal area doesn’t matter as much as the airflow can be made as close to laminar as possible through splitters etc. this is conjecture however. I’mm sure someone with more knowledge will be along shortly to answer properly

F1 tyres double up as suspension. I think next years tyres are a different profile though.

wider tyres have a lower rolling resistance at the same pressures at the expense of frontal area (aero)

You sure? I don’t know but that sounds counterintuitive to me. Open wheels cause lots of turbulence and massive drag (one of the reasons Le Mans cars have a much higher top speed) but the rules prevent them covering the wheels.

They’re the height of a normal 15-16″ road wheel and tyre but on 13″ rims so I wouldn’t say they were low profile!!

Low profile tyre are more stable in the sidewall so can technically handle higher loads (think fatbike vs road tyre), it’s why Michelin wanted to come in but with 17-18″ rims. Next year’s tyres are wider but still on 13″ rims, so the aero drag from them (larger frontal area, more turbulence) will lower top speeds but increase cornering loads.

I have a ’94 Goodyear front tyre as a coffee table which is the same dimensions as the current fronts, it’s labelled up as 26″/13″/13″ which is 26 height, 13 rim diameter. 13 width. It’s not anything like a low profile tyre on your diesel saloon!

Low profile tyres are just a fashion item, so they look like bangles on a wrist..sort of.

F1 tyres are quite high profile, but the rubber in contact with the ground is roughly the same thickness as a normal road tyre.

I don’t know why low profile tyres covet so much joy and enthusiasm, they’re just plain silly on UK Gravel, sorry roads.

There are reasons for and against low profile tyres.

Much like 26″ vs 29″ bike wheels the larger overall circumference has advantages. Better grip, better over rough surfaces and on cars larger wheels do have an aesthetic appeal and the trend is also backed up with low profile tyres.

While you can do large diameter with any profile as you go larger then the tyre sidwalls would need to be larger and need more rubber and take away a lot of the suspension control from the car designer and put it at the mercy of the tyre designer and the customer maintaining the correct tyre pressure and buying decent tyres. There is a lot more freedom in road car suspension design over F1 so there is the scope to sort the suspension for low profile tyres and have a much more consistent system. So that is probably a win for low profile.

Weight wise you need a stiff sidewall in a low profile tyre but the length is much shorter so stiffness greater but the circumference of the bead section is greater and the wheel rim has more metal further out due to the larger rim circumference so that is probably a win for high profile tyres.

Rim damage resistance and ride on poor surfaces is a clear win for high profile IMO.

Looks – low profile win in most cases.

so far 2 all.

F1 have very tight packaging requirements so suspension has to take up as little room as possible. Also lots of travel means more wheel angle change which has to be designed out. Their tyres are very tightly controlled and it’s designed as a complete system and used on very smooth tracks. Pretty much the only advantage of a low profile set up on F1 would be the ability to run larger brakes for better life/dissipation as I am not sure they need more power wise as they can already run out of grip and faster speeds into corners = less time for outbraking manoeuvres and potentially worse crashes if something goes wrong.

It’s mainly down to the loads that the huge amounts of downforce and cornering speeds produce, low profile tyres wouldn’t cope.

They keep talking about switching to low profile tyres though.

https://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2014/07/guest-blog-mark-gillans-thoughts-on-pirellis-experiment-with-low-profile-f1-tyres/

If you put low profile wheels and tyres on a current F1 car it would make the handling so nervous as to be undriveable.

F1 cars have massive profile tyres because that’s what the regulations say they must have. 13″ rims mean less room and cooling for brakes, smaller brakes, less braking force, longer braking distance, more flexibility to make a pass in the braking zone. Or so the plan goes – of course F1 cars have massive braking power.

Over the years some F1 engineers have been asked to design a car on paper they would build if there wasn’t any rules (but asked not to make one as wide as the track to blocks passes or fly etc) most of those designs had tiny profile tyres. Adrian Newey designed a few for Gran Tourismo – they had completely flat wheels and tyres for aerodynamics but looking at the inside edge you could see the tyre were very low profile.