Pirelli hit back at wet weather tyre claims

Pirelli has denied that their tyres are the reason for a lack of racing in wet conditions in Formula One today.

Despite ever-improving safety standards, in recent years there has been an increasing number of wet races either halted or delayed because of the weather.

Sebastian Vettel said that drivers do not trust the current full wet Pirelli tyres, and Felipe Massa agreed, telling Brazil's UOL that: "The problem we have is the aquaplaning on these tyres"

But Pirelli Motorsport Racing Manager Mario Isola denied those claims.

"The rain tyres are designed to run on a wet track," he insisted. "We have already shown in situations like practice in the US GP, with heavy rain, the tyres work in this type of condition. What we have seen is many races stopped because of visibility."

Felipe Nasr on the other hand trusts the FIA's judgement on wet weather running.

"I think we are considering a safety margin that is greater than normal," he said. "The best example is the British Grand Prix, where we, the drivers, felt that we could have gone at least two laps earlier. It's the FIA who decides, but we already expressed our opinion to them about that.".

A solution put forward by the FIA recently is that in the event of a safety car start the cars will return to the grid when the track is safe for a normal standing start.

"Everyone seems to agree with that," said FIA race director Charlie Whiting. "We know that the drivers don't like driving on the wet weather tyres," he said. "They don't have such a tread depth and then they start aquaplaning -- these are all the things we have to take into account."

"We know that driving in the wet is not easy, but it never has been and there is no suggestion that we're doing it for any other reason than to try and make sure that the drivers don't aquaplane," he added.

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