Formula 1 official tyre supplier Pirelli has hit back after several complains from the drivers regarding the quality of the wet tyres, explaining that the teams are not doing enough to help them develop the rain tyres.
At the end of the Japanese Grand Prix, fans and media were once again wondering why Formula 1 seems to do everything possible in order to avoid racing in very wet conditions.
The blame was put on Pirelli, as several drivers, including Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel, explaining that the Japanese Grand Prix was red flagged due to the fact that drivers were having problems coping with the intermediate tyres.
“We are forced to go on the intermediates because the rain tyres are junk – sorry, not so good. So we push ourselves from one emergency to another. The whole field was driving on the wrong tyres.” – the former Scuderia Ferrari driver explained – “We are all responsible for that, but we have an intermediate that is so much faster than the wet tyre. The wet is better for the conditions but so slow that you’re forced to be on the next tyre. That needs to be improved.” – the German driver pointed out.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen shared the same view as Sebastian Vettel:
“I didn’t want to take a dig but I think we need better rain tyres. You saw what we could do in the 90s or the early 2000s with the amount of water on the track. I’m very happy to do a few test days to try all different kinds of tyres because we need better rain tyres. The extremes are just slow and they don’t really carry a lot of water away. If you compare to 20 years ago, it was perfectly fine in the wet. So there must be a solution. But like I said, this is not criticism because I’m very happy to help out.” – the Dutchman added.
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Pirelli’s Head of F1 & Car Racing, Mario Isola, explained the main issue is that Formula 1 does not allow teams to take part in many testing sessions in wet conditions, in order for Pirelli to gather enough data to develop a better product:
“We only have one compound for the rain tyres and one for the intermediates. And they have to work everywhere – on 22 different tracks. So we have to find the best compromise. Honestly we don’t have many opportunities to test the rain and intermediate tyres,” he insists. “We work with the FIA and the teams, but if we don’t have the opportunity to test the tyres then we don’t have the opportunity to develop them either.” – Mario Isola explained.
At the same time, Pirelli’s Motorsport Director feels that even in the rare wet-weather testing sessions, teams and drivers are still more focused on finding performance instead of helping Pirelli improve the tyres:
“If you remember the pre-season tests in Barcelona, we wet the track for half a day but the extreme wet was used very little. They were focusing on the intermediate.” – Mario Isola concluded.
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