Pirelli responds to Hamilton ‘complaints’ about F1’s wet tyres

Pirelli has responded to Lewis Hamilton’s plea to provide better rain tyres after Formula 1’s Brazilian Grand Prix qualifying had to be postponed for adverse weather conditions.

Qualifying at Sao Paulo was first delayed and ultimately postponed to Sunday morning following heavy rain showers and thunderstorms, which caused standing water on various parts of the circuit.

Despite the best efforts of the marshals, more rain prevented race control from completing a qualifying session ahead of sunset at 18:20 local time, with qualifying instead taking place at 7:30 local time on Sunday morning. With more rain expected, the race time was brought forward to 12:30 to give race control the best odds of getting the race in the books.

Explaining the rain delay

Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali apologised for the delay to the fans, hoping they would understand that “to race in these conditions is impossible”.

While speaking to F1 TV, Domenicali was interrupted by seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who urged the F1 chief to make sure Pirelli provides better wet tyres and brings back the use of tyre blankets for its blue-walled compound, which were only removed last year.

“You should’ve sent us out, this is ridiculous, we should go out!,” Hamilton told Domenicali in a friendly, joking manner. “If you give us better wet tyres or blankets we’d be able to run in this. I’m putting you on the spot right now.”

The viability of Pirelli’s wet tyres has long been a point of criticism among F1 drivers. Because its intermediate compound is much more performant, Pirelli’s full wets have limited use as the conditions in which they are preferred to intermediates are generally too extreme for F1 cars to run in anyway.

Improvements on the horizon?

Pirelli’s motorsports chief Mario Isola acknowledged that the manufacturer needs to step up its rain tyre performance, with development ongoing for next year. But he explained that it is lacking wet tyre testing data from the most demanding circuits to make bigger steps, with wet-tyre tests much harder to organise.

“It is true that we need to improve the performance of the wet tyre to generate a proper crossover with the intermediate,” Isola said.

“That’s our target. Next year we will have a new wet tyre with some small modifications, because unfortunately we didn’t have the possibility to have a proper test with the wet tyre on a high…