NOVEMBER 27, 2016

Pirelli working to improve wet tyres

Pirelli is taking the F1 drivers' feedback on board and is working on improving its rain tyres.

Pirelli is taking the F1 drivers' feedback on board and is working on improving its rain tyres.

That is the claim of Mario Isola, a leading official of F1's official supplier, following a key meeting with drivers in Abu Dhabi.

The meeting followed a wave of criticism of Pirelli's rain tyres after the red flag, safety car and crash-affected Brazilian grand prix.

"These rain tyres are just bad tyres," Romain Grosjean, who crashed on the reconnaissance laps even before the Interlagos race, is quoted by Speed Week.

Isola explained: "The basic problem is that we are not able to do much testing. We need more test days to understand better how to make a more suitable product.

"The discussion with the drivers was very interesting," he added in Abu Dhabi.

Speed Week claims that one touted solution is a further wet tyre option that is more suited to a track surface like Interlagos.

Isola said: "We are looking at this right now, but again, to have a better tyre, we need more testing."

(GMM)