After a rainy Singapore Grand Prix, the very wet conditions were also present at the Japanese Grand Prix. The rain meant it was a long red flag period and everyone was in the dark about continuing the race. Brand new two-time world champion Max Verstappen has his ideas on how to do better and sees an area for improvement at Pirelli.

From pole position, Verstappen got through the first corners unscathed in the wet conditions and retained the lead in the race. Sebastian Vettel, Carlos Sainz, Alexander Albon, Guanyu Zhou and Pierre Gasly all slid off the track despite driving on intermediate tyres. A red flag followed. Moments later, a restart was announced, which again was suspended rather last minute as conditions had deteriorated again and the shower radar did not bode well. For a long time, the rain seemed to be the big game-changer, but after a delay of over two hours, the drivers were eventually able to race for another 40 minutes at Suzuka. All in all, there was a lot of uncertainty and that while also taking into account that it starts to get dark in Japan around 17:30 local time.

After the Grand Prix, Verstappen addressed the press in the press conference and was also asked what he thought of the situation: "I didn't want to take a dig out of everyone but I think we need better rain tyres. If you saw what we could do in the ‘90s or the early 2000s, with the amount of water on the track."

Five seconds faster

Verstappen says he is happy with Pirelli's few extra test days to try all the different types of tyres and thinks the 'extreme wet' tyres are slow and they cannot drain much water. The Dutchman therefore thinks that is why drivers often switch to intermediate tyres as quickly as possible. "We went from the extreme to the inter today and we immediately went five seconds at least faster and that is just too big. And that's why nobody really wants to run that extreme."

The Red Bull Racing driver says there must be a solution and is happy to think along and is also already contributing an idea. "Like I said, this is not criticism because I'm very happy to help out. We should look into it. Maybe we can just organise more tests days in the wet and work together, to try and find better tyres to at least have an opportunity to really drive in the wet."