Wet weather test won’t be representative, say drivers

2017 F1 season

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Today’s wet weather test is unlikely to provide useful data because the conditions won’t be representative of real racing conditions, according to drivers.

The Circuit de Catalunya has been soaked ahead of today’s test in order for Pirelli to test its wet weather tyres today. But Romain Grosjean pointed out the surface temperature will be much cooler than what is typically seen at wet races.

“Wet weather testing is always tricky,” said the Haas driver. “You’re never going to get the same rain for all day long, you’re never going to get the same amount of water on the track and so on.”

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“It’s cold so it’s unlikely that most of the races we got to is like five degrees in the morning and wet.”

However Grosjean backed the need for wet weather tyre testing. “I guess it’s going to be a good test with Pirelli,” he said.

“It’s a big challenge with the huge tyres sorting out aquaplaning and getting the tyres to work and to warm up and we’ll see how it goes.”

Jolyon Palmer agreed the test was “very important” after the concerns drivers expressed about tyres following last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix.

“It’s not going to be an easy day for them because it’s going to be really cold in the morning and I’m not sure we’re going to have conditions like that in the year when it’s ten degrees track temperature,” he said.

“So it’s a different way the tyres are going to work compared to Brazil where it was a bit warmer. And how they’re going to keep the track consistent when this weather is very sunny.”

“But it’s a chance for them to learn, get some data and get some feedback. Brazil was very bad for them, we hope that it’ll be better this year.”

Grosjean, who crashed prior to the start of the race in Brazil on the wet track, said the problems drivers experienced there were not simply cases of aquaplaning.

“It was just a loss of grip at certain moments, like a lot of us had in Brazil which you cannot really put to aquaplaning because there was not a lot of water there,” he said.

“We’ve been running, I remember qualifying in Austin in 2015, there we had aquaplaning, the cars were going left and right and in a straight line not even going straight. In Brazil it was raining a little bit but nothing huge.”

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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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3 comments on “Wet weather test won’t be representative, say drivers”

  1. They have said it too early. Should have waited till the race started. SMH.

  2. Sounds like Williams picked a good day to skip in hindsight. They won’t have lost as much with their absence as had the driving been in the dry all day. They wouldn’t have gained much useful wet data anyway. They will still get data from Pirelli on the results from what wet running did take place.

  3. Is this why Merc have had an electrical glitch this morning ;]

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