Kimi Raikkonen blamed Pirelli’s wet weather tyres for the long delay during today’s qualifying session.
Qualifying was delayed for over two hours following Romain Grosjean’s crash in Q1 after the Haas driver aquaplaned into a barrier on the pit straight.
“It’s stupid to wait many hours for the reason that we don’t have a proper rain tyre that can handle a little bit water, standing water in the straights,” he said. “It’s not good for spectators and any of us. We managed to do it in the end but not the easiest.”
“Obviously when we started it was aquaplaning but to be honest we need to get better wet tyres because we wait for two hours, the spectators are out there, for to be honest not an awful lot of water on the circuit.
Raikkonen previously criticised Pirelli’s wet weather tyres following last year’s rain-hit Brazilian Grand Prix. His Ferrari team mate was also unhappy about today’s delay.
“The reality is in these conditions we struggle,” said Sebastian Vettel. “I think years ago we were able to run in these conditions so something is not right.”
“Obviously we struggle with aquaplaning. It’s a shame for the people to wait. For us it doesn’t matter, we’re in the dry, we just wait and get ready again but for the people out there it’s quite ugly. It’s not ideal but tomorrow should be nice again.”
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
2nd September 2017, 17:42
Well, tyres are wider and that’s not good for wet weather. Maybe the compounds could be changed or the construction but that’s already a disadvantage…
They’ve been saying “I think years ago we were able to run in these conditions so something is not right.” for ages anyway. If we go back to last year, they said the same. Go back a few more years, they said the same. Probably by that statement the tyres in the 80s were as sticky as donut dough.
Imre (@f1mre)
2nd September 2017, 17:51
It’s the parc ferme rules. They can’t change setup between qualy and race therefore they setup the car to dry conditions even if it’s wet. This rule makes no sense to me.
Bio
2nd September 2017, 18:54
Finally someone that can actually use his brain. Tyres have nothing to do with aquaplaning these days, it’s the bottom of the car that goes aquaplaning due to the stupid parc ferme rule that avoid a proper wet setup. Apart from that, everyone managed their tyres much better than Ferrari, hence It was Ferrari’s problem, not Pirelli’s.
Tore Weyland
3rd September 2017, 6:22
@Bio Vettel quote from yesterday:“You set up the car to go as fast as you can, and the classic rain set-ups don’t exist anymore. I doubt if anyone set up the car for the wet today.”
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
2nd September 2017, 18:41
The problem is that the Pirellis have never been good in the rain. I used to think it was the parc ferme rules that don’t allow for proper ride height in the rain but it’s more than that, it’s Monza you don’t want the car near the ground anyway. the tyre can’t cope at all, honestly up to this point we almost be better off not driving in the rain, currently there’s so much aero you can’t see anything, only on inters visibility is acceptable.
Racingdave
2nd September 2017, 20:45
I think in Monza you want the car as low as possible…..
Strontium (@strontium)
2nd September 2017, 21:04
I’ve always thought the problem is the tyres are designed focusing on the wrong thing. The tyres are designed to clear the water, which creates spray. It’d be much better to have a tyre which doesn’t clear much water (hence less spray and a track which stays wet), but instead provides more grip, perhaps with wider and deeper grooves.
That kills two birds with one stone
Gabriel (@rethla)
3rd September 2017, 1:14
Maybe with 13 wheels instead of 4 it would work.
1Racer
2nd September 2017, 18:31
Last I checked, all the drivers are using the same tires.
Strontium (@strontium)
2nd September 2017, 19:18
1Racer, I’m not sure you even read the headline, never mind the article
James
3rd September 2017, 2:28
Haha, brilliant.
Racingdave
2nd September 2017, 20:48
I’m sure the plank must have something todo with the aquaplaning.
Kimi is right though – you would have never have applauded Schumacher for his first Ferrari win or Senna at donington if the tyres where always this bad….
Esploratore
3rd September 2017, 2:21
What do you mean? Even with these tyres, good wet weather drivers run their whole race, stay in the lead all time and don’t make a single mistake (hamilton brazil 2016) or overtake a superior car, get screwed up by a bad choice of the team and overtake over 10 cars in the last few laps (verstappen brazil 2016), these tyres might be worse than the ones senna and schumacher enjoyed, but all drivers are at the same level and can still do a whole race distance, verstappen only risked to retire once that race.
In fact I like it more now than in 2003 and 2006 for example, in 2003 bridgestones (look at indianapolis race) were a lot better than michelins in rain conditions with intermediate tyres, but on slicks with light rain michelin were better, and by 2006 michelin overtook bridgestone even with intermediate tyres, making schumacher look worse than he was on the rain since he was compared with michelin drivers, at least now EVERYONE is on pirelli tyres.
Neil (@neilosjames)
3rd September 2017, 12:18
20 years ago…
“We can get round on this tyre, it’s a bit slow but who cares, it clears water and because we can still set the cars up for the wet, and because we’re still allowed to run in the wet, we’ll use it…”
Now…
“The 156th right-side sensor is detecting a sub-optimal performance level. Advise tyre manufacturer to make a faster tyre that isn’t so obviously below the intermediate in performance level on a relative damp track (evidenced by data from sensors 13 to 54 on the simulator last week). Recommend tyre capable of running on the same wetness of track as the intermediate to make it a viable alternative on drying track. Simulataneously recommend tyre capable of dealing with huge quantities of water for the one session in 20 that the race director doesn’t stop due to it being too wet. If incapable of doing both things to an acceptable standard, recommend moaning about it lacking performance. Remove all blame from driver, chassis, setup, shoddy track surfaces, rules and so on…