We all know that lower profile tyres provide handling accuracy and response, at the expense of rideability. Why does professinal racing series, F1, F2, USAC "seem" to have high profile tyres? Does anyone know?

 

Rules.

Also, they are not as high a profile number as they seem, since they are so wide.

Cheers.

 

And they are 13 inches.!!!

 

F1 mandated the small wheels for a few reasons, one was to limit the size of the brakes to, in theory, keep the brakes small and therefore the speeds lower. Of course teams just developed a carbon fiber disk and wide drum combo to get around the small size in which to place the brake. The relatively high profile is pretty much needed, can you imagine a low profile 13" tire on an F1 car? haha. Also open wheel cars tend to be pretty tiny, so they don't need 19" rims messing up aerodynamics up front. Touring cars and other closed bodywork cars use larger rims with less rubber because they can and don't need to spend tons of money on tire technology to get around something silly like 13" rims. No one real answer but you get the picture.