Ferrari Mailing List: Aldo and Nitrogen

[George P . (ygpz4re]

Don't know if Aldo will remember me, but back when Tic-Tac was one of Ferrari's 
F1 team sponsors, Aldo sent us a big box full of "Ferrari Tic-Tac"s.  My wife, 
as FoW's hospitality hostess back in 2000, gave them out with our snacks at the 
USGP.  Some of you may have actually gotten a box or two (I still have several 
of mine!).  The european tic-tacs were much better than the US ones, IMHO, 
especially the orange flavored ones.  Ah, the memories.....
 
Nitrogen in tires....  Yes, dry air also works, but what the Pirelli and Dunlop 
guys told me (back when I was managing FoW's race tires) was that nitrogen was 
more stable and predictable in its pressure changes as tire temps changed.  
That, and its "dryness" is why racers use it.  Our race engineer in the GT 
program (who is now an engineer with the Pratt & Miller Corvette team - hard to 
argue with that kind of success!) told me that same thing, and also that, with 
every 10* of ambient temperature change, you get a corresponding 1 pound change 
in tire pressure.  [I think that was the factor - 10* = 1 pound - but I'd have 
to dig through old notes to be sure....  I do know that there was a constant 
factor of change.]
 
I remember reading some discussion somewhere about using N in street tires.  
Frankly, I seriously doubt anyone here in the States would ever drive their 
street tires hard enough to make it worthwhile.  Ok, there's a few of you out 
there, but for 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of us, 
traffic laws and conditions simply don't allow it.
 
My 2 euro for today.
 
gp
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