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The question of what might happen in a wet race has vexed Formula 1's stakeholders since before the beginning of the season. It's also prompted some unnecessarily hysterical commentary throughout the year, peaking in the run-up to last weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos, where rain for qualifying and the race was a virtual certainty for the first time this season.
Although the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia was interrupted by rain and the discovery of a software glitch, by the time the race got going the track was drying quickly. This was not the case in Brazil.
Qualifying at Interlagos was red-flagged for 80 minutes after a downpour coincided with the start of the session, and many media outlets alighted on a spicy George Russell quote in the aftermath.
"I love driving in the rain here but, at some point, if that was a race, there was no way we should be driving in that because the chances of seeing a really, really horrific incident are very, very high," he said.
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Perfect headline material for a noisy story, but context was lacking. The general consensus within the paddock after that session was that the FIA made the right calls at the right time, immediately suspending Q1 during the initial downpour, then applying great rigour to identify a safe ‘window' to restart it.
"In general, I want to race, but yesterday [Saturday] I think it was the perfect call," said Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur after the race.
"When we did the first [Q1] lap before the red flag, we came back with two centimetres of water in the car…"
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Carlos Sainz, Williams, Arvid Lindblad, Racing Bulls
Those conditions were too wet to stage any kind of track activity beyond a boat race in the pitlane. The real questions surrounded how the cars and the latest generation of tyres would perform in the kind of wet and/or rapidly changing circumstances in which qualifying and the race could actually be staged.
Historically, Pirelli's heavily treaded ‘extreme' wet tyres are rarely seen, since too much of their operating window sits outside the margin of what is considered to be acceptable racing conditions. They displace massive quantities of water but the tread blocks overheat too quickly as the track dries. By the time the track is wet enough to justify the ‘extreme' tyre, a red flag is usually imminent.
The intermediate tyres have therefore been the wet-weather boots of choice, but this year's are understood to be too ‘hard' and slow to come up to operating temperature. Pirelli just hasn't been able to accomplish like-for-like running with the narrower wheels mandated for this season, given the testing restrictions.
It's long been feared that lack of grip from the new intermediates, combined with the more brutal torque delivery of the latest generation of engines, would make the 2026 F1 cars dangerously undriveable in the wet. Hence the outbreak of hysteria ahead of the Brazil weekend.
What actually transpired was less dramatic, and more nuanced. The nature of the track surface at Interlagos meant driveability was occasionally an issue, but not always. In the background, the FIA has been doing a lot of work since the beginning of the year to manage power delivery in these conditions.
Alexander Albon, Williams, Carlos Sainz, Williams
While qualifying – once it got started – offered some hope that the ‘extreme' wets are now more useable, the intermediates were a little more problematic. Kimi Antonelli went off at Juncao on his lap to the grid, and several other drivers reported their cars became a handful again when rain in the last 10 laps dictated a return to the intermediates.
"I think what is good is that we can use the 'big wet' much more than in the past," said Vasseur. "And this is good because it's not pushing you to use inter when it's a more 'big wet' situation, or mix between the two, and then you are taking risks.
"I think the quali was pretty good… but also the grip was completely different. You saw in the lap to the grid today that everybody was completely like hell. I think it's a difficult track with these conditions."
Pirelli's target for next year is to bring the performance of the wet-weather compounds closer together, so the intermediate warms up faster and the ‘extreme' is more resistant to wear. But this is a challenge to engineer because the tracks differ so much in terms of the energy going through the tyres.
"It was difficult to fire them up but they also wore quite quickly," said Alex Albon, who finished 15th in Brazil.
"So even when they're cold, they're wearing and it just feels like they never overheat, or they never level up to temperature. And then by the time you're circulating, the tread's already come off the tyre and then you're already struggling, you're sliding around. So, you never feel good at any point in the race; it never feels like it comes alive."
This would explain some of the peculiarities of the opening laps, where those at the front of the grid found themselves having to be super-cautious because they couldn't feel the grip – while some of those towards the rear, who spent less time waiting for lights-out, got strong getaways.
Even among those there was a variance: Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton quickly broke through to the top 10 from 20th and 21st on the grid, only for Hamilton to then go backwards as his car developed massive oversteer snaps. Verstappen, like Kimi Antonelli, then found his car less performant on the slicks.
Wet conditions added to the drama of qualifying
This mixed spread of performance over the wet and dry tyre compounds will be tricky to unpick, but the consensus remained that the wet-weather rubber needs more development. There were minor gripes but not the disasters that were feared and noisily predicted.
"I think the level of the wet and the inter is not good enough and we need to work with Pirelli on finding a better tyre," said Carlos Sainz, "because in the mixed conditions the inter is still a very weak tyre at the rear. By the time it warms up, the front is gone.
"And the extreme, honestly, yesterday we had so much sliding and a big lack of rear grip, so still missing a bit of development on these two tyres."
While the data gathered through running in many different conditions this weekend will be useful, it's still an isolated example. What worked or didn't work at Interlagos may not translate elsewhere, given variances in surfaces and ambient temperatures.
"Quite tricky I would say," was Liam Lawson's take on racing in the wet in a 2026 F1 car.
"The biggest problem today is the [ambient] temperature was much cooler than yesterday. And so even though there was less water, on the laps of the grid the cars were nearly undriveable, and the temps were just going down.
"So, we survived the start of the race but at points when it rains a lot, the inter becomes… it's not that the standing water's too much, it's that you can't actually keep the temperature in it. So, if we're on a track like Vegas and it rains, honestly, I think we're in trouble.
"But overall, obviously we got through a weekend for the first time with these tyres."
Additional reporting by Roberto Chinchero and Guilherme Longo
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