Pirelli plays down Raikkonen comments

Pirelli says it is not concerned by comments from Kimi Raikkonen regarding the prototype wet tyres tested at Paul Ricard.

Raikkonen drove for Ferrari on the opening day of the wet tyre test, with an initial baseline run on 2015 wet tyres being followed by a number of 10-lap stints on different prototypes. After his day in the car, Raikkonen said he was unconvinced by the new wets and preferred the 2015 specification.

However, Pirelli racing manager Mario Isola says all of the prototype tyres were designed to be largely similar to last year's compounds.

"Kimi was testing different prototypes in full wet conditions," Isola told reporters after Tuesday's running. "He was not unhappy, from what I know. He didn't find big differences, but that was not unexpected because one of the targets was to have a prototype that's slightly better for full wet conditions."

Sebastian Vettel drove on Tuesday and was more positive than his Ferrari team-mate, saying he was pleased with the consistency of the tyres.

“In the end you are a bit blind,” Vettel is quoted as saying by Crash.net. “You have a rough idea of what tyres you test and you know how the tyres felt last year. Then again it is not clear what is going to happen after this. Some sets you have a better and a worse feeling at different areas around the track so there are some results but it is up to Pirelli to go ahead with it.

“It was fairly consistent conditions, we mostly used the extreme wets and had one run on the intermediates to get an idea on the crossover points. It is natural that when it is a bit drier that the extreme wets are suffering a bit more. It was fairly consistent and there was no major drop off in lap times.”

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