FEATURE
K
imi Raikkonen suffered a scary high
speed crash into the pit lane wall during
the Brazilian Grand Prix and pointed
out that a decade ago the wet weather tyres
were better than the current era Pirelli wets.
Raikkonen said after the race, “They [the
full wet tyres] are very easy to aquaplane with,
it’s not like it’s raining a lot. We’ve said that
many times, but it obviously also depends on
the circuit and many things.”
Raikkonen’s accident occurred as he
hurtled towards Turn 1 on lap 20 when the
race was restarted for a second time. The
Ferrari snapped sideways, rendering the
veteran Finn a passenger as it speared into
the wall and ended facing the wrong way
as the rest of the field whizzed by perilously
close.
Raikkonen explained, “If I compare to
ten or twelve years ago, those tyres could
cope with this kind of rain with no issues, no
aquaplaning. The aquaplaning is the biggest
issue, if we have a bit of standing water we
get zero grip.”
“It was not raining heavily but there’s a
lot of standing water and it’s very easy to go
off when we hit it. The reasons behind that
are hard to say, but looking purely at the
conditions they’re not that bad.”
“The uphill section was, at least for me
there was a lot of aquaplaning, even on the
turn before. I got aquaplaning and spun off.”
“I almost got it back but then went off in a
pretty bad place, I couldn’t do anything about
it. I didn’t expect to get aquaplaning there and
went off…” said Raikkonen was running in
third when the incident took place.