Pirelli has tested a new Wet tyre it hopes will be able to solve a longstanding issue in Formula 1, with a new compound which sees a “crossover” between its existing rain rubber and Intermediates.
The Italian manufacturer has faced some kickback over recent years with its wet-weather compounds, which have largely gathered dust as teams have shown a significant reluctance to use them.
A case in point was last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix, in which heavy rainfall affected the weekend, causing qualifying to be eventually held on Sunday morning.
This situation irked Lewis Hamilton at the time, calling the situation “ridiculous” and called for “better tyres”.
A pertinent issue with the current Wet tyres is their inability to hold temperature in levels of rainfall that are deemed safe to race in, causing significant overheating.
Their usage are only limited to extreme wet weather, in which racing conditions are usually aborted, rendering the compound little more than useless.
But Pirelli has begun testing the new compound at Fiorano via a Ferrari ‘mule’ car driven by Charles Leclerc and test driver Zhou Guanyu, and the indications from its Motorsport Manager Mario Isola are already positive.
“I believe we are now in quite a good situation,” Isola said. “The Intermediate tyre was already more or less defined [for 2026]. We have to validate some new solution of the extreme wet.
“Especially trying to have a crossover [between a Wet and an Intermediate] in a different position compared to now. To make the extreme Wet tyre more usable. Not just behind the safety car, but a proper race tyre.
“We know that the issue with the extreme wet is visibility anyway. So, we are not going to fix this issue. But both the intermediate and the wet now are OK.”
The percentages are all-important for Pirelli
The key to getting the crossover right is through numbers, the percentage of lap times in different conditions, to be exact.
Pirelli’s data suggest that the more recent incarnation of its wet tyre was its apparent usage window being at around 120 per cent of a typical laptime of a circuit, compared to the 112 per cent when dry tyres ought to be changed to intermediates.
Isola revealed that this year’s compound has only seen an improvement of two per cent, which is off its desired targets.
Although the mule car testing does not always provide sufficient data – which it similarly cannot do conclusively with dry tyres too – Pirelli is hopeful that its new prototype compound will reach a desired number.
“Now it is 118 per cent [of a lap in the dry],” Isola said. “We would like to go down to 116% or 115%, something like that.”
The pressure will most certainly be on, as there has already been negative feedback regarding its Dry tyres for 2026, with George Russell already publicly damning them, saying that they were “quite a step worse” than the current wider ones currently in use.
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