Martin Brundle slams F1 for 'safety paradox' as future of wet races questioned
Martin Brundle voiced his concern that Formula 1 is moving away from racing with wet tyres after a rain-soaked weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Sunday's race avoided most of the weekend's downpours. There was only a fairly light drizzle mid-way through the Grand Prix, which passed quickly enough that slick tyres continued to be the best choice for everyone on track.
The same was not true for the Sprint the previous day. Heavy rain saw the start of the session delayed by around 30 minutes and, by the time the cars were out on track, it was behind the safety car.
As well as the formation lap, the first four laps of the short-form race were completed with no overtaking allowed, purely so the cars could be used to shift some of the standing water on track amid concerns over visibility.
And by the time it was green flagged, the track had dried up considerably, to the point everyone dove into the pits within two laps to change to intermediate tyres. This, Brundle pointed out, created a safety worry of its own.
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"We had a delayed start and then several safety car laps so that, inevitably, the track was in such good shape that immediately every driver wanted to take intermediate tyres once it was clear the safety car was pulling in," he wrote in his Sky Sports column.
"Race control were overly cautious in my view, and the uncomfortable safety paradox here is that many drivers pitted immediately into a wet pit lane populated by 250 team members in chaotic stops, releases, and near misses between cars.
"The fallout of this is that many key people, and fans for that matter, were reasonably asking why we even carry full wet tyres around the world, which are mandatory behind Safety Car starts, when we only ever release the cars when the track is at intermediate tyre stage, and even fast heading towards slick dry tyres on occasion."
Brundle's comments come after Mario Isola, head of motorsport at F1 tyre suppliers Pirelli, admitted that the full wet compound is becoming "useless" amid F1's reluctance to go racing in wet conditions.
The Italian said: "Performance-wise, when we were developing the tyres, we found a result in terms of performance that was much, much better than the old wet tyre. It's not enough, maybe, but we did a step. The warm-up was not an issue. All of the teams voted to introduce the new wet during the season because they had the data from our test.
"Are they safety car tyres? We discuss many times about visibility. It is an issue and clearly, the FIA, together with the teams, are working around some devices [spray guards] that can improve visibility in order to reduce the spray that is coming from the tyres and the diffuser.
"If the idea is to continue to look for a device that is able to reduce the spray and therefore give [drivers] the possibility to run in full-wet conditions, we have to keep the two products. But if the full wet tyre is used only behind the safety car, I agree with drivers that, at the moment, it is a useless tyre."
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