Several drivers have called for Pirelli to improve the Extreme Wet weather tyre, following complaints of the cars being too slow when using the rubber.
This weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix has seen consistent heavy rain, yet the drivers have tried to avoid using the Extreme Wets.
The tyre has done excellently at reducing the amount of aquaplaning experienced by the drivers, but at a cost.
It’s been an extremely slow tyre to be on, as proven in the sprint race on Saturday.
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All the drivers started the race on the full wets but pitted in the opening two laps of green flag racing for the Intermediates.
The drivers have therefore called for Pirelli to make “some significant improvements” with the full wet tyre, given that nobody wants to use it even in dangerous conditions.
“I remember watching the old onboard videos of 2007 with [Felipe] Massa and [Robert] Kubica in Fuji,” George Russell said, as reported by BBC Sport. “So much water and still [able to] push flat out.
“I remember doing test days here in F3 on Michelin and Hankook and aquaplaning wasn’t really as thing.
“I appreciate we are doing over 200mph and it’s not straightforward, but there need to be some significant improvements.”
Charles Leclerc also insisted that “some work” must be done by Pirelli, with the tyre only being suitable for when the track has rivers across it.
“There’s some work that needs to be done because we’ve got extreme tyres that are really slow, but really good for [avoiding] aquaplaning, but we never drive in those conditions because of visibility,” Leclerc said.
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“So whenever it’s driveable, 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 the inters, basically.”
To the drivers relief, Pirelli are making improvements to the wet tyre, as revealed by Pirelli motorsport director Mario Isola.
“We already found an improvement with this wet compared to the old one,” Isola said. “But we still miss a little bit of performance to have the right crossover with the intermediate.”