A late downpour caused the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix sprint race to be delayed. The field was then led by the safety car for five formation laps ahead of a rolling start.
The safety car train helped clear standing water to cut spray and help visibility, but all cars pitted within two laps to fit intermediate tyres since the wet weather crossover had arrived.
As such, drivers reckoned the blue-walled full-wet construction now only served a purpose as 'safety car tyres', with Mercedes' George Russell calling them out as "pretty pointless".
Pirelli head of motorsport Mario Isola surprisingly sided with the drivers, so long as the FIA's erring on the side of caution during limited visibility meant the conditions for which full wets were designed would always be run behind the safety car.
He said: "I believe that we have to, first of all, divide two problems: one is the performance of the wet, one is the visibility [amid driver complaints].
"Performance-wise, when we were developing the tyres, we found a result in terms of performance that was much, much better [five seconds per lap] than the old wet tyre.
"It's not enough, maybe, but we did a step… the warm-up was not an issue. All of the teams voted to introduce the new wet during the season because they had the data from our test.
"Maybe this performance is still not enough to generate the right crossover with intermediates…"
He added: "Are they safety car tyres? We discuss many times about visibility. It is an issue and clearly, the FIA, together with the teams, are working around some devices [spray guards] that can improve visibility in order to reduce the spray that is coming from the tyres and the diffuser.
Source: Autosport