Grosjean: F1 needs to improve “poor” wet tyres
Romain Grosjean has hit out at the abilities of Pirelli’s wet-weather Formula 1 tyres after he crashed out before the Brazilian Grand Prix had even started.
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari SF16-H crash
Motorsport Images
Grosjean, who qualified seventh, failed to start after spinning his car into the barriers on the drag out of the final corner on to the way to the grid.
Crashes from Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen then followed in the race itself, leading to Grosjean questioning the ability of the tyres in the conditions for which they were designed.
“Honestly, I don’t know what happened,” said Grosjean. “I saw two other cars having the same issue – so we need to improve the wet tyres. In my case I was not even pushing.
“It shows that the extreme tyre is a very poor tyre and there is no grip. You have to take a huge amount of risk, you can't control the car in a straight line.
“From hero to zero in less than 24 hours. We had a good starting position but I was just doing laps to the grid, going uphill and not even flat out. I picked up a lot of wheelspin on the rear tyres and just spun the car.
“It was an on/off switch, there was nothing I could control.”
Ericsson - who, unlike Grosjean, crashed on intermediate tyres rather than full wets - said standing water was to blame, and that neither tyre can cope with that.
“In the corners it’s all fine, but then you come to Turn 12 and the run to the start/finish line and there’s a lot of standing water," said the Swede. "We’ve seen three cars lose it now, more or less in a straight line.
“Both inters or extreme wets, I don't know if it makes a difference, as we’ve seen cars on both compounds losing it.”
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments