2025 Belgian Grand Prix - Spa-Francorchamps, July 25 - 27

[basti313]

Water is always good, whatever the track is. Even if the risk is Spa 2021.

I do not see it like this. Spa is too long for this and too difficult. Everyone changes the tires at the same lap +-1 at maximum, so there is no spice up. Plus all main overtaking spots are in the middle of trees...they simply do not dry up next to the racing line. We saw this in the sprint and we saw this in 2005 when Rai could not get past Mon albeit being 2sec or more faster....
2005 is also the example for today. Any car that does not overheat the tires will just have a massive advantage on the drying track.

FIA should have power to force everyone on full wets and staying with them. Nowadays, everyone just tries to manage with inters until the race is stopped when someone is in the wall with inters. Brazil 2016 was absolutely masterpiece with full wets.

Absolutely. But the issue is, that the wets are too bad. So if they force it, there is a point where they allow other tires and everyone needs to pit immediately. So this will not change the situation, just add some mayhem in the pits...

[Seanspeed]

I do not see it like this. Spa is too long for this and too difficult. Everyone changes the tires at the same lap +-1 at maximum, so there is no spice up. Plus all main overtaking spots are in the middle of trees...they simply do not dry up next to the racing line. We saw this in the sprint and we saw this in 2005 when Rai could not get past Mon albeit being 2sec or more faster....
2005 is also the example for today. Any car that does not overheat the tires will just have a massive advantage on the drying track.

FIA should have power to force everyone on full wets and staying with them. Nowadays, everyone just tries to manage with inters until the race is stopped when someone is in the wall with inters. Brazil 2016 was absolutely masterpiece with full wets.

Absolutely. But the issue is, that the wets are too bad. So if they force it, there is a point where they allow other tires and everyone needs to pit immediately. So this will not change the situation, just add some mayhem in the pits...

I dont agree with forcing anybody on wets, but it doesn't matter since race direction doesn't let F1 race in actual wet weather anymore. The wet tires themselves are fine, but there's never any reason to use them since such conditions will get either red flagged or a safety car, and then will only let the cars race again once it's calm enough for inters(while ironically bunching up the cars again, significantly increasing the chances of crashes...).

[Jurgen von Diaz]

FIA should have power to force everyone on full wets and staying with them. Nowadays, everyone just tries to manage with inters until the race is stopped when someone is in the wall with inters. Brazil 2016 was absolutely masterpiece with full wets.

Absolutely. But the issue is, that the wets are too bad. So if they force it, there is a point where they allow other tires and everyone needs to pit immediately. So this will not change the situation, just add some mayhem in the pits...

I dont agree with forcing anybody on wets, but it doesn't matter since race direction doesn't let F1 race in actual wet weather anymore. The wet tires themselves are fine, but there's never any reason to use them since such conditions will get either red flagged or a safety car, and then will only let the cars race again once it's calm enough for inters(while ironically bunching up the cars again, significantly increasing the chances of crashes...).

Pirelli should shake up their inters design. Inters should be closer to full wets and why not abandon full wets completely. They never use them because teams and drivers are waiting for the red flag. This way, maybe even Sainz would be away from the barriers.

[erudite450]

This whole scapegoating of full wets started in the last year or two. We have had proper wet races in the Pirelli era. The reality is that since Charlie's passing race directors have clearly been risk averse. It's getting ridiculous now where even qualifying sessions are redflagged under full wet conditions.

[Seanspeed]

Absolutely. But the issue is, that the wets are too bad. So if they force it, there is a point where they allow other tires and everyone needs to pit immediately. So this will not change the situation, just add some mayhem in the pits...

I dont agree with forcing anybody on wets, but it doesn't matter since race direction doesn't let F1 race in actual wet weather anymore. The wet tires themselves are fine, but there's never any reason to use them since such conditions will get either red flagged or a safety car, and then will only let the cars race again once it's calm enough for inters(while ironically bunching up the cars again, significantly increasing the chances of crashes...).

Pirelli should shake up their inters design. Inters should be closer to full wets and why not abandon full wets completely. They never use them because teams and drivers are waiting for the red flag. This way, maybe even Sainz would be away from the barriers.

This doesn't change the main problem - that race direction wont let them race in actual wet conditions. It fundamentally affects the team's strategy choices. Silverstone is a great example - it clearly became time for wets at some point, but after a few seconds of complaining from like two drivers, the race director called a safety car, even though literally nobody had crashed and only like one driver even went off at all(at a track with miles and miles of run off).

The problem is almost entirely because of modern race direction. And again, they ironically just make things more unsafe when they bunch everybody up again via safety car or red flat restart.

It's a total joke. This whole sport is increasingly being more terribly run.

[Mogster]

Visibility is the biggest issue. If they can’t see then you end up with high speed car on car collisions like in Silverstone. Car on car collisions have proven to be extremely dangerous as with the Hubert and Correa incident in F2.

Post Jules Bianchi they can only race until cars start to spin or go off. Once you have cars off you need tractors to recover them, you can’t have heavy vehicles and marshalls inside the barriers with F1 cars circulating at race speed any more. At that point it’s going to take so long (and probably keep happening) you may as well red flag and re-start when conditions improve.