Kimi Raikkonen: “The conditions today were not the easiest ones: it was very tricky, and when you do many laps behind the Safety Car it gets even more difficult. It was not raining heavily, but there was a lot of standing water. The biggest problem was the aquaplaning and I got it in a place where I was not expecting it: I spun off on the straight! I almost got the car back, but then I went off in a pretty bad place. The Wet tires are very vulnerable, easy to aquaplaning. It obviously depends on the circuit and on many other things, but comparing to some years ago, those tires could handle this kind of water with no issues of aquaplaning.”
quoteRaikkonen: F1's wet tyres were better a decade ago
By: Jonathan Noble, Formula 1 Editor 2016-11-16
Kimi Raikkonen says Formula 1's current wet tyres are not as good as they were more than a decade ago, as they leave drivers with "zero" chance of being able to respond to aquaplaning.
The Finn spectacularly crashed out of the Brazilian Grand Prix after losing control of his Ferrari on standing water on the start-finish straight at Interlagos.
That crash – plus incidents suffered by a host of drivers during a rain-hit race in Brazil – led to further calls for changes to Pirelli's extreme rubber design to make it better able to cope in wet conditions.
Asked for his views on Pirelli's wet tyres, Raikkonen said: "They are very easy to aquaplane – it is not like it is raining massively.
"We said it many times before but obviously it depends on the circuit and many things.
"If I compare it to 12 years ago, those tyres could handle this kind of water with no issues and no aquaplaning. It looks like if you have a little bit of standing water, you have zero grip."
Raikkonen explained that he had been left as a passenger in his crash, as the back end of his car got away from him on the start-finish straight.
"The uphill at least for me there was a lot of aquaplaning," he said. "I almost got it back and went off in a pretty bad place.
"It was not raining so heavy, but it was very easy to get aquaplaning. I just aquaplaned at a place where I didn't expect it at all and I went off. But nobody hit me."
He added: "The problem is the aquaplaning. It is the standing water, and there is zero you can do."
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Sun Nov 13, 2016 4:45 pm
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Good that Kimi is fine 
