Ricciardo pushes for wet tyre rule change

Daniel Ricciardo hopes the Formula 1 rule makers make adjustments to wet tyre allocations next season after explaining the majority of teams avoided long runs in FP2 in order to keep hold of fresh tyres for qualifying and the race.

With the weather forecast predicting another day of rain for Saturday's FP3 and qualifying, only five drivers set timed laps in the wet FP2 session to effectively make it a washout at Suzuka. Ricciardo and Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen didn’t even venture out for an out-lap in the wet – with the Australian driver explaining the squad was saving its wet tyre allocation for qualifying and the potent of a wet race.

When a session is declared wet teams are handed an extra set of intermediate Pirelli tyres but only have three fresh sets of wet tyres for a race weekend – which Ricciardo wants altered for next season to enable teams to run more in practice without risking race tyres.

“Next year I think they will try to change it,” Ricciardo said. “They give us an extra set of inters for Fridays but not extremes [wets] so that is why we didn’t run.

“If we need to use the extreme wet tyre tomorrow we have to save it for when it counts. I think it was good that some guys ran but to get all of us running they need to give us a set of extremes for Friday.”

Ricciardo is hoping the wet conditions remain in Japan as he feels it will give a level-playing field for Red Bull to attack Ferrari and Mercedes during qualifying with both its rival manufacturers able to extract an extra step of engine performance over a single lap which is more effective in the dry.

“I think we have more to gain,” he said. “Ferrari and Mercedes they expect and everyone expects them to always be at the front. We can obviously be there at times so any kind of uncertainty or change of conditions can give us a bit more of a gamble to take.”