This post was contributed by Henk Ormel, who has been a much beloved member of our community at Wheel Sports and an incredibly insightful eye for feedback on technical matters.
The FIA gave Pirelli the task to build better extreme wet weather tires after the Susuka debacle of 2022. There the intermediates were 4 seconds a lap faster compared to the full wetts. This is why no-one wanted to use the full wet tires.
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Pirelli did come with a solution that is even environmentally friendly. Wets that don’t need tire blankets. Actually this is a good thought, the amount of water that has to be moved to get the rubber on the tarmac does cool the tires substantially. So tires get cold anyway.
The problem arises when the track is drying. The rubber has to be flexible in cold temperatures to provide grip in that circumstances. When the cooling starts lacking, the tire statr to overheat very quickly and the pressure goes up at the same speed. The life time of that tire on a drying track is very limited. With that the timing of the pitstop for inters has to be perfect. The switch from full wetts to slicks becomes impossible.
There were rumors Monaco could be partally wet. This is not the case according to my weather data. Unfortunately? the new extreme wetts have to wait for another occasion. Monaco with unpredictable weather conditions could be very exciting.
