George Russell labels Pirelli’s F1 wet tires ‘POINTLESS’

Wet tires are also jokingly referred to as the 'safety car tires' in F1 circles.

George Russell labels Pirelli’s F1 wet tires ‘POINTLESS’

George Russell (Credits: Sports Brief) and Pirelli Wet Tires (Credits: Alamy)

In the Belgian GP Sprint, drivers rushed into the pits in the first lap itself to change for intermediate tires. After the race, Mercedes’ George Russell pointed out the ineffectiveness of the extremely wet tires provided by Pirelli.

Drivers have to start with wet tires if the race is declared wet and has to start behind a safety car. But, as soon as the conditions become traceable, wets become of little to no use as there is a massive difference in grip between them and intermediates. Russell said that wets are only effective against aquaplaning. But, if the conditions are that severe, the race is anyway delayed due to the risk involved.

“The extreme [wet] tyre is a pretty pointless tyre, it’s really, really bad. It’s probably six, seven seconds a lap slower than the intermediate. And the only reason you’d ever run the extreme wet is because you’d aquaplane on an intermediate. So that needs to be substantially improved,” Russell told Autosport.

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc also agreed with Russell. He said, “It’s quite tricky at the moment. I think the extreme should be faster and closer to the inters, so we run more on the extreme than the inters, basically.”

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Toto Wolff says Mercedes needs to “up their game” after sprint day mistakes

Toto Wolff
Toto Wolff (Credits: PlanetF1)

Mercedes’ sprint shootout run in Belgium was not the best the team has seen. Severe miscommunication between the drivers and the team almost caused Russell and Lewis Hamilton to collide. Furthermore, due to this incident, Hamilton lost a lot of time and could only bag P7 while Russell was on P10. Mercedes chief Toto Wolff addressed this issue ahead of the Belgian GP on Sunday.

Toto Wolff said that they were racing in extremely difficult conditions. In these conditions, the team should have a lot of precision. He noted that Hamilton was projected to be on the pole in the previous lap but ended up P7 due to the incident with Russell, which should not have happened.

“Between the drivers and the team, we just need to ramp up our game… in tough conditions, we have got to have some precision. Very quickly, you can look very good, very intelligent or very bad. If these didn’t tangle the way they did, Max would have missed his final lap,” said Wolff.

Lewis Hamilton will start on P3 on Sunday, with his teammate George Russell on P8. With both Red Bulls in front of and behind him, Hamilton will aim to get the podium while George tries to replicate another impressive overtaking show like he did in Hungary.

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