F1: Drivers say Monaco tires far too hard

Pirelli's Monaco Grand Prix compounds are too hard and the super-soft feels like a medium, according to several Formula 1 drivers.

Throughout the weekend, drivers have complained about a lack of grip on both the softs and super-softs as they struggled to get heat into the rubber amid cool temperatures in Monte Carlo.

"These tires, they take quite a long time to bring in," said polesitter Lewis Hamilton. "We had to push quite a lot to get the tires to start working.

"They are very hard considering they are the soft and super-soft. They are incredibly hard. When we looked at wear life yesterday, there are a lot of laps you can do.

"This afternoon, it was a bit cooler and I had to do a warm-up lap, after the out-lap, and then the fast lap. Even on the fast lap, they were so slow. And I had to do that with both tires."

The super-soft is making its first appearance of the season this weekend, with Pirelli saying this year's rubber possesses a different composition that provides greater resistance to graining and blistering.

Force India driver Sergio Perez suggested Pirelli had been too conservative with the composition of the super-soft tire.

"This super-soft tire that Pirelli has brought is not a super-soft tire anymore," said the Mexican. "It's a medium compound. It's very low grip, it takes a while to warm up, and we won't see an issue with degradation on the super-soft."

Williams's Valtteri Bottas argued that the soft is so durable teams could do a whole race distance on the compound.

"With the soft tire you could do the whole race," he said. "[On the super-soft], about half the race we could possibly do with our car. It's going to be a one-stop race for sure.

"[The soft] is way too hard, even the super-soft is on the limit. I'm sure if you ask any driver, they will say the tires are too hard for this circuit."

Bottas's teammate Felipe Massa agreed: "For this track, yes the super-soft is too hard. Maybe it will work better at the next track we use it."

Originally on Autosport.com