Williams rookie Nicholas Latifi says the lack of grip at Formula 1’s Turkish Grand Prix was such that he had more feel when driving a rally car in icy weather.
Latifi, along with Williams team-mate George Russell, started the rain-hit race at Istanbul Park on Intermediate tyres but fell away from the pack early on.
He soon went a lap down and then made contact with Romain Grosjean while being lapped by the Haas driver – for which he received a reprimand.
Williams retired Latifi shortly after the incident.
“It is only my second time driving Formula 1 cars in the rain,” he said. “It wasn’t even rain, this was ice, worse than ice!
“I’ve driven on the ice in a rally car before with spikes and I can safely say I had more grip on that than I did this weekend in the wet and in the race.
“It was a very difficult challenge, but definitely something that we’ll be better off for having dealt with.”
Latifi went on to explain the tyre issues that he and Williams struggled with through the weekend.
“The low grip… to a certain extent it’s fun up to a certain point,” he said. “In FP1 once you realise how it’s going to be and wrap your head around just ‘okay there’s low grip it’s going to be how it’s going to be’, you can have fun with it.
“But at some point you do expect the track to rubber in, at a certain standard to be able to go racing. The fact the rain made it 100 time worse. I’m surprised.
“I was expecting the rain to make it relatively better than how low grip it was in the dry, but it was just undriveable, some cars, some drivers had an easier time, some more difficult, the position we are in…everything was down to tyres, getting them into the right window.
“If your car has that bit more grip, you pick up an extra km or two into the corners, you generate a bit more, and it generates a spiral, but not being in one of the stronger cars it becomes so, so tricky.
“They were definitely the hardest conditions I’ve had to drive in my life, not just F1, just staying on track.”
