Wet weather brings an added degree of uncertainty for Formula 1 races, but the expected rain set to hit the Australian Grand Prix could have a bigger impact than normal.
A combination of teams and drivers having no experience of their cars in the rain, uncertainty surrounding a new-for-2025 wet tyre, a bunch of rookie drivers, and a track that offers quite low grip, has left F1 figures wary about how things will play out.
As Charles Leclerc said: “It's going to be interesting. I think everybody is going into the complete unknown.
“Nobody has done one lap in the rain with these cars. So there is lots to learn.”
As Alex Albon joked “good luck to the rookies”, few think that a wet Albert Park will be straightforward.
Racing Bulls boss Laurent Mekies told Sky: “I think it will be chaos tomorrow. It's a city track. You have six rookies on track. You have lots of rain coming…”
A faster wet tyre
One of the biggest uncertainties that teams will face in the Australian Grand Prix is the performance of the full wet tyre.
In the past, it has been pretty standard behaviour for drivers to steer clear of it and stay as much as possible on the intermediate.
That is because, while the wet is a better tyre when standing water gets too extreme, normally if conditions are that bad then the red flag comes out anyway because there is too much spray being thrown up.
This has led even Pirelli to back up the view of drivers that there is little point having a wet tyre like this because there are so few occasions when it is called into action.
Pirelli motorsport director Mario Isola admitted after the rain-hit 2023 Belgian Grand Prix: “If the full wet tyre is used only behind the safety car, I agree with drivers that at the moment it’s a useless tyre.”
Pirelli has made an effort to improve things, though, and for 2025 a new wet has been introduced that has greater potential to be brought into play – but teams cannot be sure of it right now because they have not tested it.
Speaking about the change, Pirelli’s chief engineer Simone Berra said: “We have a new tread pattern to better link the blocks of the tread, to avoid a high level of movement and therefore heat generation.
“The problem with the old wets was they were overheating very, very quickly and easily.
“So we have also introduced a new compound for the wet to reduce its thermal sensitivity.
“All these changes are made to have the wet closer to the intermediate in terms of crossover, and so to have a more usable wet tyre.”
Australian GP qualifying follow-ups
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Berra explained that in wet testing that has been conducted at Fiorano and Paul Ricard, which are low severity circuits so will not punish the tyres too much, the improvement with the new specification was 1.5 seconds.
What is not known is if that performance gain will be greater at higher severity circuits.
Based on Pirelli’s traditional crossover points for slick to inter (around 112%), and inter to wet (around 116%), the aim is to make sure there is not such a big gap as there was in the past where the old wet ended up being up to 120% off the inter.
Based on an estimated Melbourne dry race lap of 1m22 seconds, it means the inter comes into play around 1m32s and the wet should ideally be pitched for around 1m47s.
However, based on the old 120% figure, the previous wet was likely only any good around 1m50s – which left a three-second gap that was a deterrent to change.
So if there is a gain of more than the 1.5 seconds shown in Paul Ricard and Fiorano, then it could definitely bring the wet into play.
However, teams will only find out about the wet's performance in the race – and the leading competitors will probably rely on a guinea pig potentially opting for it before they commit themselves.
The other uncertainty, of course, is where the cut off point off is in terms of spray conditions being too bad to let cars continue to race.
As Berra said: “We are still trying to understand how much we have improved with the new specification [wet] and how usable it will be before a red flag.”
Hamilton’s 'uncomfortable' position
While a host of rookies face a baptism of fire with a potentially wet race (although Ollie Bearman and Liam Lawson took part in last year’s Brazilian GP), they are not the only ones who are stepping into the unknown.
Lewis Hamilton revealed after qualifying that he is going to be up against it, having never driven a Ferrari in the wet – and him not even knowing of the various car setting changes that need to be made when conditions change.
“I don't even know where the wet switch is really,” he said. “I don't know which buttons I've got to switch to tomorrow. So that's going to be new.
“We're using Brembo [brakes], for example, which I've not used for a long time. How the Brembos behave in the wet? I don't know if they will glaze. What settings do I have to use with this car? It's all different.”
So for however much success Hamilton has enjoyed in rain-hit races in the past, he admits there is a sense of trepidation this time.
“When you qualify eight tenths [off], you kind of hope for it to be wet,” he said. “I've got three laps to learn the car in the wet and then get out to race.
“The wet has often been something I've always enjoyed. Growing up in England, it was wet, so it's been a comfort zone for me.
“But as I said, I'm going for the first time in the wet, in an uncomfortable position, because I've never driven this car. So it's going to be a shock to the system when I get out there. But I'm going to be learning on the fly and just giving it everything.”
