Ferrari forced to abandon Pirelli wet F1 test

The opening day of what was supposed to be a two-day test to evaluate Pirelli's 2017 wider rain rubber was cut short after Vettel crashed into the barriers on Thursday.

Video footage of the incident showed he ran off the artificially-soaked track on the shallow left-hand kink after the bridge crossing – hitting the barriers head on.

Although there had been some hope that repairs could be made to the SF15-T mule car overnight, closer examination of the chassis back at the factory left the team realising it did not have enough spare parts to resume running.

The decision to abandon the test means that Ferrari's third driver Antonio Giovinazzi will lose a chance to gain further valuable mileage in an F1 car as he had been due to take over duties on Friday.

Aquaplaning

The focus of the Pirelli test had been for Vettel to give Pirelli feedback on how the wet tyres behaved, with a particular focus on their warm-up characteristics.

Issues with warm-up were highlighted at last year's Brazilian Grand Prix, and the matter has been put into sharper focus for 2017 thanks to a new rules that means there will be standing starts after safety car periods.

One consequence of that move is that drivers will likely face having to use wet tyres with a much lower temperature that had previously been possible when tyre blankets were normally used ahead of starts.

Conditions on Thursday were especially tricky, however, with track temperature no higher than 5ºC.

Vettel escaped any serious injury in the incident, other than some minor bruising after hitting his elbow on the side of the cockpit.