Wet races: Good or bad?

[Brogan]

Does anyone else really not enjoy wet races?

I just find them all a bit of a lottery, especially if it starts raining during the race as it's pure luck as to where the drivers are in relation to the pit lane entry.

Then of course there's the increased risk of a safety car - another lottery.

In most cases the cars will have been set up for a dry race so if it rains quite heavily then the set ups are all wrong, which increases the chances of more mistakes or accidents, etc.

Give me a dry race any day.

 

[Andyoak]

I'd rather have a wet race than no race.
What I don't like are the monsoon races from Japan, China and Malaysia; they really are a lottery and usually run behind a safety car for way too long.
But I love trying to guess when we'll have a rain shower over part of Spa and I like seeing drivers quickly having to adapt to it; they don't all spin off.
And finally, I hate wet British Grand Prix because Silverstone looks dreadful in the rain; no landscape just disused airfield.

 

[MCLS]

Having been a spectator at both a dry race (Spa 2007) and a wet race (Britain 2008) the wet race is more manic from a spectators view (and the need for umbrellas). Really it depends on where you are, at places like Spa and Silverstone the rain spices things up because the rain never causes a safety car (apart from 2000 at Spa) but as we saw in 2009 the rain wrecked the Malaysian GP and to an extent Korea in 2010.

 

[Speshal]

I don't mind the odd wet race, as long as it's wet from the start as Bro mentioned I'm not that keen on races where it starts to rain during but it does show another skill set that the best drivers have.

 

[Galahad]

I don't know about it being a lottery. The drivers are a bigger part of the equation; and the teams' strategy calls are often more important too. It mixes things up, for sure, but races run under laboratory conditions would be bloody tedious.

 

[Sarinaide]

I love wet weather races, there is always something happening....who can forget Korea's debut grand prix!

 

[MCLS]

An hour's wait before anything happened wasn't that good though

 

[Enja]

I honestly don't recall anything interesting happening in that wet race at Korea.

 

[Sarinaide]

An hour's wait before anything happened wasn't that good though

But then the action began....starting with Webber ending his title aspirations and for good measure taking out Rosberg.....Then Vitaly Petrov had a mischief.....then Vettels engine went poof........I also remembered a lot of Adrien Suttil and others Kobiyashi having off road demolition derby's.........tis was awesome. Nothing like a little mud and missing fender dealt with a side order of championship curveball.

 

[Incubus]

The end aim is to run the distance in the shortest possible time/
Wet and dry races pose a different challenge to eachother. Some drivers excel in the wet more than others. Same can be said for the cars. Wet races as such aren't any more of a lottery than dry ones, it's races with variable weather that can turn into a lottery, with the constant uncertainty as to whether you're on the right tyre, but that' s when tactics and the team's ability to read weather patterns from their own weather sources, and that's also a skill anyway.

I enjoy both. They're both great.

 

[KekeTheKing]

I do enjoy a Wet Race now and again. It's awesome to see the guys fighting with their cars in slick conditions. But, as some others have mentioned, I'm not a fan of the monsoon races.

Not rooting for rain this weekend either.

 

[KekeTheKing]

I honestly don't recall anything interesting happening in that wet race at Korea.

Webber binning his WDC chances wasn't enough?

edit - hoping you forgot a smiley Enja

 

[Incubus]

Webber binning his WDC chances wasn't enough?

------------------------------------

Or FA closing down on Vettel, and then the german retiring?

 

[Road of Bones]

I like a wet race, but not where they spend half the time tip-toeing about behind the SC like a set of ballerinas - Monsoon races are bloody ridiculous, and a lot of the blame can be laid at the door of whoever decided it was a good idea to shift the race time back a couple of hours for those poor European fans who can't set an alarm clock or program their video recorders, or choose to schedule races in countries at the wrong time of year, when it's bound to rain.

The best races are wet/dry - when you get to see the drivers manage their cars through a variety of conditions, and choosing when to go from inters to slicks (or vice-versa) can make all the difference. That's when you really get to see the truly skilled drivers plying their trade...

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

Having been a spectator at both a dry race (Spa 2007) and a wet race (Britain 2008) the wet race is more manic from a spectators view (and the need for umbrellas). Really it depends on where you are, at places like Spa and Silverstone the rain spices things up because the rain never causes a safety car (apart from 2000 at Spa) but as we saw in 2009 the rain wrecked the Malaysian GP and to an extent Korea in 2010.

Aren't umbrellas banned from motor racing circuits? If not, they should be.

 

[MCLS]

Nope, I bought it from the circuit in fact.

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

Nope, I bought it from the circuit in fact.

Ha ha, like it!
Must be just the grandstands then. I know that when I was at Silverstone in 2008, every time anyone put one up the stewards went over and told them to close it again (mind you, if they hadn't, the perpetrators would have been lynched by those behind them anyway).

Talking of that race, that was one of the best wet races I've ever seen, even though we got soaked!

 

[MCLS]

I'm sliding off topic here but bear with me, I wasn't in the grandstands for that race, I was down at Copse Terrace, best seats (or standing) on the circuit really, particularly on lap 1. I remember getting really soaked on Sunday morning during GP2 and the Porsche race where they kept running wide at turn 1.

Back on topic, really the circuit kinda defines how good a wet race is, some races are brilliant in the wet and some are rubbish.

 

[FB]

We've needed wet races over the last few years to overcome the tedium of the cars running round line astern and dropping into the pits once a race. So, until 2011, good. Now, don't know until we've had one and seen how the Pirelli tyres perform.

 

[MCLS]

Does anyone actually know the degradation levels of wet tyres, I wonder if anyone would try a 0 stopper if it consistently rained on Sunday.