Pirelli to keep improving wet tyres

Mar.3 - Pirelli has vowed to keep working on the effectiveness of its wet-weather tyres.

On Thursday, the sight of trucks dumping thousands of litres of water on the Barcelona circuit was widely criticised, as F1's official supplier attempted to test its modified wets for 2017.

Some wondered why Pirelli didn't arrange to run instead at Paul Ricard, where a sprinkler system is in place.

"There's also Fiorano," Pirelli's Paul Hembery said, "but these conditions are different so in Barcelona you have to use these trucks which, as you know, is not the most advanced technology.

"As such, the conditions are constantly changing. But we can still see there are problems with the tyre warming so we're going to continue to search for solutions."

Lewis Hamilton opted out of the 'wet' testing completely, joking on Wednesday that he would "fake a pulled muscle" before his car mysteriously developed an electrical problem on Thursday morning.

But Kimi Raikkonen - a critic of Pirelli's wets last year - was duly in action.

Asked if Pirelli has improved, the Ferrari driver answered: "Hard to say. The conditions when you wet the track are never like when it rains, so it's not easy for them.

"It's hard to make wet tyres without being able to test them properly," he added.

Haas' Romain Grosjean said: "I think Pirelli has made progress, but the intermediates lost their effectiveness after one lap so it's necessary to do something more.

"But in general, this is progress compared to last year."

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