When you Google why are f1 tires smooth, the answer is no tread means more surface area, so better grip, but when you Google why do street tires have grooves, the same answer comes up. I’m confused. Also, is this a physics question, engineering or technology? Lol
In: Engineering
First off; F1 tires are designed to work as slick tires. The smooth rubber on the bottom of a road tire isn’t designed to be the primary contact source to the road and as a result is not very thick. When your tire is bald, you’re on the verge of running out of rubber and the tire failing. Now as to why we don’t drive around with road tires designed to be slicks…
F1 slick tires are also dangerous and slippery as soon as the track becomes wet. You can look up videos of what happens when they try slicks on a track that is too wet. Lando Norris in Russia 2021 comes to mind. They also don’t work very well when they are cold and they are completely useless on anything that isn’t a solid surface like grass or gravel.
Basically, a slick tire is designed to give as much surface contact as possible to a smooth hard surface. They also have to be heated up to temperature that would melt your road tires in order to function properly and they work much better when there is already lots of rubber laid down on the track. Basically they are designed to almost chemically react to the surface and leave a trail of rubber as the go. This is part of why they only last for like 100 miles or less.
Some higher end performance cars do offer “summer tires” that are more slick than a normal road tire but again, are really dangerous to drive in variable conditions, and you’re supposed to change to winter tires.
So in short: slick tires work very well in a very controlled setting, but aren’t versatile enough to be useful to road cars because they don’t work well in the cold, rain, dirt, grass, gravel, uneven road surfaces or even dusty street surfaces. They need clean direct contact to tarmac.
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