KERS is at the end of the day, push to pass racing. So i agree it is a bit of a forced effort to put passing into the sport because there is a shortage of that at the moment. It's also being passed off as road relevant technology to justify the huge cost of development in the current financial climate. I think it'll be combined with some kind of adjustable rear wing, which if i understand correctly will be like an f-duct (which will be banned) but only usable in certain circumstances and not activated by aerodynamics. The trouble with the KERS is that it's heavy so it gives heavier drivers much less scope to alter the balance of their car with ballast, playing into the hands of smaller drivers setup wise.
I don't think the tyre thing is about stealing face time with the Pirelli engineers. Having said that Nick Heidfeld has been testing for them throughout the year so i suspect his signiture is worth a little more than it otherwise would be. But the way i see it, Bridgestone aren't sharing their data or anything they have learnt with Pirelli, so tyre technology is likely to take a large step backwards Along with this i think its been decided that one of the two tyre compounds should be more marginal in terms of race distance, because it's been said that having the soft tyre capable of doing the whole race is pointless. There isn't going to be a lot of track time on the Pirelli tyres between now and the start of the season, and even then i'd imagine they'll be evolving fairly quickly, someone's car is going to suit that nicely, and someone is likely to fall wide of the mark.
