Video: Vettel crash halts Ferrari’s wet weather test for Pirelli

2017 F1 season

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Sebastian Vettel’s wet weather tyre test at Fiorano has been brought to a halt following a crash at the beginning of his afternoon runs.

Footage of the crash was caught on camera by a fan. The Ferrari driver went off and made contact with a barrier but is understood to be unhurt following the crash.

The team later confirmed it had abandoned its plans to run on Friday due to the damage. Antonio Giovinazzi had been due to take over driver duties on the final day of the test.

Vettel was using the team’s ‘mule’ car based on the SF15-T to simulate the increased downforce levels of this year’s cars. Pirelli is conducting further tests of its new, wider wet weather tyres following criticism of how they have performed in recent rain-hit events.

Pirelli has further tests of its new wet weather tyres planned to take place before the season begins next month.

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Picture via Giovanni Nesti

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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44 comments on “Video: Vettel crash halts Ferrari’s wet weather test for Pirelli”

  1. Tyres working marvelously then, obviously

    1. You can’t find the limit without going over it at least once.

      1. Autosport is saying it was on a warm up lap. Track was cold, but still not a good sign.

        1. Yeah 5 deg C, tough ask on the tyres. Can’t imagine there will be many places/times during the F1 season where track temp would even get close to being that low.

      2. Going over the limit is not the same thing as going off the track.

        1. @socksolid Just as spilling coffee isn’t the same as spilling it all over your trousers, but the chance of that happening is quite significant considering you’re already spilling coffee.

    2. My thoughts exactly BUT we don’t any details. I’ll bet way more likely it’s the usual horribel Pirelli wet tyres & they have no excuse after all these years.

  2. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
    9th February 2017, 15:50

    Good ole Seb.

  3. I am sure Vettel is going to tell the world that Kvyat was testing an invisible car at Fiorano and drove into him causing the crash.

    1. Or Max was doing some vudú magic lol

    2. Even as a Vettel fan, I LOLED at this! :D

  4. This will look a bit silly for Vettel, but to be fair he isn’t a bad wet weather driver at all. Surely the circumstances under which they are testing the tyres is far from optimal.

    1. Are you seriously almost questioning the skills of a multiple world champion based on a 15 second video? It goes for all people here somehow judging Vettel all of a sudden. I’m not a fan of Vettel at all, never liked him for that matter, but it’s just a test, just trying stuff out and just crashing. Let it go, just enjoy the images of the first (somewhat) 2017 specced car.

  5. Short test, unfortunate but that’s what testing is for. I hope though we have enough time to as with the 2017 rules, try to make right a problem by making the challenge even harder.

    1. No testing is not for crashing on the warmuplap.

  6. Oh boy. Let the Vettel jokes fly!!!

    1. More like let the Vettel jokes crash in to a wall on the warm up lap.

      1. I genuinely laughed out loud at that comment :)

    2. Is Vettel doing a Maldonado?

      1. More a Grosjean

    3. If he wanted to fly, he should’ve joined Red Bull :L

    4. Seb will never be good at NASCAR. He can’t turn left!!!

  7. Well that went well then…

  8. “Good tyres”, mused Sebastien, casually lighting a cigarette, “but certainly not great tyres”.

  9. Willem Cecchi (@)
    9th February 2017, 17:32

    Smashing start to 2017.

    1. There is more coming, don’t worry.

  10. petebaldwin (@)
    9th February 2017, 19:54

    Look at where he’s gone off, you can see the light patch on the track which I assume is standing water. If it’s just swapped ends on him there, he’d be a passenger.

    1. @petebaldwin Indeed, and from the video that’s just been added it looks like it did just snap away from him, nothing he could do.

      @keithcollantine any idea who might have the original video that we were watching on the other screen?

  11. Ouch… In a one od Ferrari. He should have known, never drive Italian exotics in the rain.

    1. Wonder if the wider tires will actually be more susceptible to hydroplaning? Rather than cutting through the standing water, they might float!

        1. Indeed, and since Vettel went out on a wet patch in that corner, It does seem to be another well thought through step forward for F1 …

        2. @eode @keithcollantine @bascb GPupdate are reporting that Pireli brought different prototypes to the test. Vettel managed 40 laps before the crash, maybe he was on a prototype that didn’t work as they hoped.

          Other than that Ferrari told the media that the data gathered until that point was “good”

          Trying to keep positive here, lets hope it was just a hiccup.

          1. Hm, he was on an outlap though, wasn’t he @johnmilk? So it’s possible that he had had a break between laps and they just changed the tyres.

            So maybe he just got cought out by a puddle that had not been there. And the tyres might not have been quite up to temperature at that pont either. And they might off course have behaved somewhat different than Vettel had expected, etc.

            Off course the most important thing is, that indeed they ARE testing the tyres. That increases the likelyhood that things like this won’t be happening during the season.

          2. @bascb that seems to be the general idea, at least if we follow the reports from autosport. But even them are say “what was believed to be a warm-up-lap”.

            Either way, both scenarios are possible, and neither of them are reason for concern, for the moment. It is in fact good to know that they took a few different solutions and are trying to figure out what works

            It is a shame that video though, we can’t take practically anything from it, it just appears that the rear snapped on him and he was a passenger from that moment on

          3. @johnmilk, you also have to wonder what the handling characteristics of that car are like – there have been rumours that the test hack that Ferrari have put together is underdeveloped due to a lack of funding and hasn’t performed that well in testing, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the handling of the car isn’t particularly great given that it is reportedly a bit of a botched job.

        3. To be fair.. it’s there job to make them not float.

  12. Oh dear… At least Hembery has an excuse next time Vettel complains about his tyres.

    “Well, we wanted to test them but SOMEBODY crashed the car…”

  13. Rainy Australia pls!

  14. I wonder how the guy shooting the video crashed his phone

  15. “damn, Maurizio, scusi , i forgot to put the steering wheel on.
    It doesn’t turn well in that case ….”

  16. Guessing Benson is following this website closely… seen the same story posted a couple of hours ago on BBC.

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