Romain Grosjean has labelled the tyre pressures imposed by Pirelli for the Chinese Grand Prix as "absolutely ridiculous".
Pirelli has increased the minimum tyre pressures by four psi this year, with the front tyres increasing from 19psi in 2015. As a result, a number of drivers have been complaining of a lack of grip as the tyre slides on the track surface and Grosjean believes the pressures are far too high.
“Esteban [Gutierrez] had a very difficult day, and we didn’t have an easy day either," Grosjean said. “It’s been very tricky driving the car given the fact we don’t have any information from previous years here.
“The Pirelli tyre pressure limit has been ridiculous today, and everything is up to the roof and the cars are undriveable. There is a lot of work we need to do, a lot of questions we need to ask ourselves.
“There is no reason why we lost three seconds from Bahrain, so it’s back to the basics, understanding what’s going on, and I’m sure some explanation is going to come.
“Out of the garage the front-tyre pressures are 23psi, which is absolutely ridiculous, with the rear 21 and a half. We have had on the rear some high limit, but with that high on the front you just don’t get any feeling. It’s like a piece of wood, and not driveable.
“Back in time we were four to five psi lower than that.”
And Grosjean hopes Pirelli will listen to the drivers' complaints and considering lowering the minimum pressures for the rest of the weekend.
“I think it’s us more than others, but if we didn’t have any limit we would never run that.
“Recently we’ve already had some drastic limits, around 21, 20, that still gives you a bit of a feeling and is still very high.
“Back in Michelin terms it was 15, 13 in Monaco, and there in 2012 people were running 16 and 18. So imagine on track we are 26 at the front, hot, and 23 at the rear. It’s almost a road car.
“It would be good if we could change a little because it doesn’t feel like a racing car.”
Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery says the pressures could be revisited if the tyre manufacturer feels the need after analysing Friday's running.
“Traction was certainly at a premium, it’s true to say," Hembery said. “We’re doing the post-[practice] briefing, so we’ll know where we are with that.
“The process is that on a Friday we take the data, the telemetry from the teams and we compare that to the pre-race simulations, and then we verify if the prescriptions we have are correct.”
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