Sebastian Vettel's 'useless' wet tire claims refuted by Pirelli boss

Pirelli boss Mario Isola has come out to refute Sebastian Vettel's claims of the wet tire being 'useless'. The German had earlier criticized the wet compound tires as being much harder to race and claimed that drivers tend to switch to intermediates as soon as they can.

Isola, however, said that this was not the case as the compound used for intermediate tires was very similar to the one used for wets, leaving not much of a difference between the two. The Italian said:

“The Regen [rain; wet] compound is different than the Intermediate, but it’s not much harder. The tests we’ve done in the past showed (that the tyres) had similar characteristics to last year’s and we also wanted to keep the crossover time at a similar level as last year.”

Isola also mentioned that the asphalt being less rough on a street track also played a role in determining the crossover time. He added, saying:

“I think the crossover time here in Monaco between the wet tyre and the intermediate was quite different than at other tracks. We tested the wets and inters in these conditions and even in cooler temperatures. It was mainly due to the type of asphalt. This is a real street circuit with street asphalt. The roughness is therefore much lower than with track asphalt and therefore much less grip is generated for the rain tires.”

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What was Sebastian Vettel's criticism of the Pirelli wet tires?

After the race in Monaco, Sebastian Vettel was questioned as to why he was one of the first drivers to switch to intermediates on the wet track. The German driver replied saying that it was due to the hardness of the wet tire that makes it impossible to use in those conditions. He said:

“As soon as you can go on the intermediate, you do it. The rain tyres are far too hard for this track and even for Imola, they were too hard. In rainy weather, we know that the current cars have a lot of aquaplaning. Pirelli hasn’t worked on this subject for years and everyone knows it. So we have to wait until it stops raining to be able to launch a race. I remember the days when we could have driven here in the rain, with no problem with this amount of water, but with these tyres it is impossible. Looking at them, the ‘extreme wet’ looks good but in fact, they’re useless. As soon as you can switch to intermediate, you do it straight away.”

Sebastian Vettel's move to the intermediates paid off as the Aston Martin driver was able to pass multiple cars and score a point for the team.