Formula One cars can't race in the rain

[EvolutionRevolution]

This has to be one of the most boring races ever. Best of the best drivers when spins are being qualified as "extremely dangerous crashes"? Total nonsense. Maybe they should start broadcasting live play of a Formula One racing game as the 2017 F1 championship...

Oh how I wish we could have rain races like this one (can't embed video; it's Spa 1998).

And now a second red flag, with the race postponed indefinitely. FIA can get themselves screwed.

[EvolutionRevolution]

Okay, so that turned out (much) better than expected after they decided that full wets were the better tires in very wet conditions Still, why they couldn't have made that call at the start of the race...

[Diamond Dave]

It is what it is, I would have liked to have seen drier conditions.

[broodenburg]

I loved that race and especially what Max Verstappen did, moving from 16 to 3rd...

[bully]

Max the axe, man he smashed his way through.. Not literally of course...

[Bottom Feeder]

This has to be one of the most boring races ever. Best of the best drivers when spins are being qualified as "extremely dangerous crashes"? Total nonsense. Maybe they should start broadcasting live play of a Formula One racing game as the 2017 F1 championship...

Oh how I wish we could have rain races like this one (can't embed video; it's Spa 1998).

And now a second red flag, with the race postponed indefinitely. FIA can get themselves screwed.

I'm not really sure what you're complaining about. The drivers? The tires? The FIA? What?

I saw three big problems with the race: Lack of grip, lack of visibility, and the sheer amount of water that was falling. If memory serves, Interlagos has been repaved somewhat recently which may explain how slick the surface is when it's wet. Obviously there's not a lot of grip on ANY wet track but it certainly varies by venue so maybe Spa in '98 wasn't too bad (comparatively speaking). Also Spa is a much faster circuit resulting in more downforce and more mechanical grip. You also have to assume that rain tire technology has come a long way in 18 years so if modern 'extreme wets' had a hard time finding grip it's a pretty good bet that Interlagos' track surface is still a bit greasy. These guys were mostly having lower-speed spins while going uphill through the final left-handers presumably through water running over the track. So I can totally see how these guys were having much worse issues than the relatively easy spins and wall-kissing would indicate. Also, back on tire technology, the huge rooster tails the extreme wets were throwing up only tells me that 1) there was a lot more water on the road than it seemed to onlookers, 2) the extreme wets can pump a lot more water out from underneath the tire than they could in '98, which 3) resulted in extremely low visibility.

So you have tries that can get rid of the water but still can't find any grip combined with drivers who can't see a damn thing pretty much made sure the race was going to be lame.

[EvolutionRevolution]

The main problem is that the current rain tires apparently suck so badly they are not suited for running in the rain . 15-20 years back they raced in much worse conditions just fine, and other racing classes outside the US (in most countries they don't throw a caution just because it rains...) have no problem running in the rain. The other problem is that even when the drivers said it was safe to drive, Charlie Whiting didn't want to. If driving in the rain is too dangerous for professional racing drivers, then it should also be absolutely forbidden for normal people who have to face the wet in daily commuting, no? Since Jules Bianchi's crash Charlie has some kind of aversion for anything that could potentially be dangerous. And if anything that is potentially dangerous needs to be forbidden, then literally anything should be forbidden, including getting born, because, gosh, something could go wrong. And that's terrible.

Just so I'm clear: I'm not saying deaths are okay (Bianchi's accident was really just a case of wrong time wrong place), but risk aversion is not risk prevention. I wonder how close they came to a riot, because the public clearly was not happy at all about what happened.

[terry.sc]

This has to be one of the most boring races ever.
Oh how I wish we could have rain races like this one (can't embed video; it's Spa 1998).

In 1998 teams could afford to take a complete spare car with them that drivers could use in the race, even with spare cars there had been 8 retirements at the end of the first lap. Today without having spare cars 13 of the drivers would have been out after the first corner. There were only 6 cars that actually finished the full race in 1998.

The difference is that in 1998 there was a tyre war, so the tyre suppliers had intermediate, wet and monsoon tyres that they took around the world. The tyre companies could test extensively with the teams so wet tyres could be developed throughout the season.

Today the only way they can get a tyre supplier is for the teams to pay for the tyres, and for wet races they are limited to the intermediates and the "extreme" wets, which are the equivalent of the old wets, not the monsoon tyres. The rules limit the amount of testing by the F1 teams, so Pirelli will be lucky to get one or two days of wet testing each year to develop their wet tyres. There is a lot of guesswork on Pirellis part and the only time they find out if they have got it right is during a wet race itself.

Then there's the fact todays cars have much less downforce to help push the tyres down through the water, and considerably more torque so the tyres will spin much easier. Even using the same tyres as in 1998, a modern car would throw itself off the track in conditions that a 1998 car would handle easily.