Formula 1 drivers have again called for the series to make improvements to its full wet weather tyres after using them in today’s rain-hit Belgian Grand Prix sprint race.
Heavy rain delayed the start of the race, which began behind the Safety Car. That meant drivers were required to start the race on the full wet weather tyre, sometimes referred to as the ‘extreme’ wet.However half the field chose to switch to intermediate tyres at the first opportunity when the race began. The rest came in on the following lap, some of which said they would have come in earlier but wanted to avoid the congestion in the pits.
Fernando Alonso was among the drivers who wasn’t happy with the performance of the full wet weather tyres. “Even behind the Safety Car they were overheating,” he pointed out.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc said the full wet weather tyres are good at coping with large volumes of water without aquaplaning, but the superior performance of the intermediate tyres make drivers want to use them as soon as possible.
“There’s some work that needs to be done there because we’ve got extreme tyres that are really slow, but that are really good for aquaplaning, but we never drive in those conditions because of visibility,” he said. “So then whenever it’s drive-able, we need to go on inters.
“It’s quite tricky at the moment. I think the extreme should be faster and closer to the inters so we run more on the extreme than inters. But it’s like this for now.”
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F1 drivers have criticised the performance of the series’ wet weather tyres for years. George Russell, a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, was scathing in his remarks.
“It’s probably six, seven seconds a lap slower than the intermediate. The only reason you’d ever run the extreme wet is because you’d aquaplane on an intermediate. So that needs to be substantially improved.”
Pirelli has been F1’s official tyre supplier since 2011. Russell believes the performance of the full wet weather tyre produced by previous supplier Bridgestone was superior, and has been impressed by his experience of other tyre manufacturers’ products in the past.
“The aquaplaning with fairly little water is really substantial,” he said. “I remember watching the old onboard videos of 2007 with Massa and Kubica in Fuji, so much water, they were still pushing flat out.
“I remember doing test days here in Formula 3 and Formula Renault on Michelin and Hankook and aquaplaning wasn’t really a thing to appreciate. I appreciate we’re doing well over 200 miles an hour and it’s not straightforward [but] there needs to be a significant improvements.”
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Russell appreciated race control’s efforts to reduce the water volume on the track by running the field behind the Safety Car before starting the race. However he felt it made little difference to the visibility levels.
“I think they did a good job with the circumstances,” he said. “It’s very challenging.
“It’s still incredibly dangerous conditions. You’re going 300 kilometres an hour on the straight and you can’t see 50 metres in front of you. I don’t know what it is, it seems to be particularly bad at this circuit. I don’t know if it’s the humidity or what, but the spray just doesn’t seem to disperse. It’s like you’re driving into a cloud, it really is.
“But I felt like those four laps under the Safety Car didn’t really give us a lot. It was the same in Japan, we were doing lots of laps under the Safety Car, it didn’t improve things.
“Maybe the solution for the future is if they allow us to do two, three, four laps at full racing speed and then bring the Safety Car out to neutralise the pack and go again, because after two laps of racing things were much better.”
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2023 Belgian Grand Prix
- Haas drivers fear losing battle for seventh after “grim weekend” in Spa
- Mercedes optimistic they’re “in the right place for winter” with development plan
- Ferrari not convinced by call to equalise engines: ‘Renault is not so far away’
- Ferrari staying “calm” amid swings in performance from race to race
- Pirelli proposes new “super-intermediate” to address wet weather tyre problems
Edvaldo
29th July 2023, 20:10
This was already being said when Pirelli first came back in ’11.
12 years later and these blue tyres are still rubbish.
Bridgestone can’t come back soon enough.
notagrumpyfan
29th July 2023, 23:31
It’s not the tyres. It’s the fact that they won’t let them race when it’s wet.
And there is some logic to that, as these ‘increased ground effect’ cars create more spray than the old cars.
Edvaldo
30th July 2023, 3:57
There is criticism from the drivers regarding their performance in the article man.
notagrumpyfan
30th July 2023, 7:27
Like this one?
Mark Zastrow (@markzastrow)
30th July 2023, 5:46
Russell’s comment that “It’s like you’re driving into a cloud” is interesting. I wonder if the ground effects are not just sucking up a greater volume of water but actually evaporating water, due to the reduced pressure under the car, which then condenses when it reemerges into the ambient conditions — literally creating a cloud. That could explain why it lingers and doesn’t behave like the larger droplets you’d expect in a normal rooster tail of spray.
notagrumpyfan
30th July 2023, 7:19
That makes a lot of sense, which then makes it more difficult to design a guard to stop it (you can catch water droplets, but you cannot catch air).
Nick T.
30th July 2023, 13:14
The drivers and the media have to be willing to race in the wet before wet performance matters. Wittich should work in the child proofing industry. He doesn’t allow racing until there’s a massive dry line these days. The whole argument that these wet tires generate more spray than previous gens is a complete joke. There’s just zero risk tolerance these days.
Carl Parker (@mysticarl)
29th July 2023, 20:22
The full wet tyres really aren’t the only problem for F1 – even if they had the best wet weather tyres possible they’d still barely ever run them because of the spray.
I’m beginning to wonder if they need to have some sort of ‘wet weather’ engine mode or something that just drops the speeds evenly across the field but still allows racing? It’s the speeds and visibility that are the real issues. Maybe they could come up with some sort of bolt-on wet rear diffuser as well to reduce the effect of the spray.
Tommy Scragend
29th July 2023, 20:35
They tested rear wheel guards recently to reduce spray but apparently they were no good and need a lot more work.
Coventry Climax
30th July 2023, 0:26
Tested? That should be forbidden! Budget cap for Pirelli and budget cap for the FIA!
Red Andy (@red-andy)
29th July 2023, 21:06
The obvious answer to that, George, is to not drive at 300 kilometres per hour when you can’t see 50 metres in front of you.
falken (@falken)
29th July 2023, 21:53
Cough.. Bianchi… Cough
Facts&Stats
29th July 2023, 23:33
Cough syrup… Double waved yellow; be prepared to stop… Cough syrup
grat
29th July 2023, 23:51
Who was found to be driving excessively fast for the conditions, when a large piece of equipment was “on track”, during a typhoon, in dark conditions, when the medical helicopter couldn’t fly, and thus, the race should have been stopped.
Otherwise, good analogy.
MichaelN
30th July 2023, 7:26
He was, but he wasn’t.
The FIA Code is simple: be prepared to stop at all times. In that sense, 200km/h was definitely too fast.
However, in an unprecedented move, the FIA appointed race director had, at the first race of the 2014 season, put numbers on yellow and double yellow flags. These were something to the tune of a couple of tenths slower than the session best (!).This was both a severe overreach of his mandate, and blatantly dangerous.
Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, the FIA was very keen to point out the first part in their “report”. Not so much the second.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
29th July 2023, 22:51
Pirelli manufacture their tyres so they conform to the contract they have with the FIA. Complaining will only work to the degree permitted by that contract. If Pirelli made tyres that were “better”, but which didn’t conform to the contract then they’d be fined by the FIA. We don’t know whether or not the Bridgestone wet weather tyres would comply with the current contract. George is one of the best people to approach the FIA to request the contract be revised to make the tyres perform better when the track is damp or wet.
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
30th July 2023, 0:26
@drycrust The request from F1 regarding performance of the tires in terms of degredation was only ever aimed at the dry compounds.
There has never been any requirement from either F1 or the FIA with regards to the intermediate or full wets other than they meet the regulations in terms of dimensions and are safe in terms of construction.
Pirelli have therefore always been free to make the best inter/wet tires they are able to and drivers have from day 1 always felt they were lacking in several areas and have complained about those things both publicly and privately. And Pirelli have several times worked on improving them but have rarely made much progress.
If Bridgestone came in there inters/wets would almost certainly be better that what Pirelli have because given they supply tires to most of the Japanese based categories they have always been able to do a lot of testing in extreme wet conditions. This is why there range of wet tires have always tended to be a step above the competition and the only other suppliers that was able to match them were Good Year & Michelin primarily because of the F1 tire wars of the past where they all had to work on producing the best range tires to beat there competition in those tire wars. Just look how Michelin’s wets improved from 2001/02 to be on par with Bridgestone by 2005/06.
Coventry Climax
30th July 2023, 0:40
It’s pointless, @gt-racer. Some will always come up for Pirelli for reasons -and with arguments- beyond me.
It’s similar to people still believing the earth is flat, or that some entity with a long white beard created the entire endless universe in just 7 units of time that only exist on earth.
notagrumpyfan
30th July 2023, 7:40
But if that ‘entity’ chose those things units as His work rhythm, then it would make sense to create this paradise on earth.
PS He created it in a record 6 days as the last day he rested and observed what He created (and should have observed that it was a sphere rather than flat and could tell both inhabitants).
Coventry Climax
30th July 2023, 11:04
It’s funny how the religious say Earth is paradise, god’s garden. Matches the self centered concept of religion. But it’s a huge mismatch with how they feel they should tend after their god’s garden.
I actually wrote the 6 -1 theme, then decided it was overkill. Also because it requires explaining of 6 days of work, in an endless universe that means not one day of rest, but an endless time of rest. It’s not like the entity picked up work again on day eight.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
31st July 2023, 22:10
The Bible is filled with examples of God working every day, and it doesn’t stop there. Even today God is very busy. For example we know a sparrow isn’t allowed to be killed without God’s consent (Matthew 10:29).
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
29th July 2023, 23:20
Why would anybody want to watch that?! Is he after Domenicali’s job?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
30th July 2023, 1:41
It also makes no sense, does it? He’s saying having cars run at full speed dries the track faster, which is true, and in that case you don’t really need a SC after a few laps at full speed.
Mr_NovemberHotel (@nicharvs)
30th July 2023, 1:07
It’s obviously a pirelli problem.
Wet races were never an issue with Bridgestone. Even if it was too wet to get green flag conditions they could still circulate behind the safety car without aquaplaning off. It’s not an issue of this Gen of cars, we’ve had issues with the Pirellis since they were introduced on the much smaller and lighter cars that had no issue running Bridgestone full wets.
I guess it’s just easier for Pirelli to suggest to the race directors that the race shouldn’t be run in wet conditions then to actually redesign tyres that will work.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
30th July 2023, 1:42
Yes, shouldn’t forget there were full wet races with pirelli before, like suzuka 2014, brazil 2016, there could be more around those years, it’s probably the size of the cars ever since 2017 and the higher downforce, causing more spray.
S
30th July 2023, 7:24
It obviously isn’t. It’s a conditions and cars problem.
Not only is that not true, but it would be completely irrelevant even if it were. Bridgestone hasn’t supplied tyres to F1 for 15 years, and the cars have changed massively since then. So has the FIA’s approach to racing in general, as safety continues to become a bigger factor year on year (especially right now at Spa).
If I’m not mistaken, they did circulate behind the SC on Full wets yesterday, and nobody aquaplaned off the track. By the time they got out of pit lane, the track was far too dry for full wets anyway – of course everyone was going to get off them ASAP because they simply aren’t made for those conditions.
The issue is rarely aquaplaning anyway. Visibility is the primary problem – and neither the tyres, nor their manufacturer, have an appreciable effect on that.
BTW, it’s not Pirelli asking for wet races to be avoided or neutralised – those decisions are being made by the FIA on advice from the drivers about visibility and the safety issues associated directly with not being able to see.