Vettel crash ends wet tire test running

Sebastian Vettel suffered a crash during a wet tire test for Pirelli that ended Ferrari’s running on Thursday.

Ferrari was carrying out the wet testing for the tire manufacturer at its Fiorano race track in Italy, with the circuit having been artificially soaked to help develop the 2018 tires. On the opening day of the two-day test, in what were described as “very cold conditions" (about 40 degress Fahrenheit), Vettel went off at the sweeping Turn 8 left-hander heading towards the hairpin at Turn 9, with photos showing the car to head right and hit the barrier on the outside of the track.

The damage caused was sufficient to end Ferrari’s running for the day, with Vettel understood to be unhurt in the incident, which occurred immediately after the lunch break.

"It was a normal accident on an artificially wet track," a Pirelli spokesperson said. "Before the accident, around 40 laps were driven in the morning and very positive data was collected.

Following the incident, Vettel made “no complaints about what he was testing,” the spokesman added.

Pirelli tire testing has been taking place with mule cars, with the Fiorano test using the same car Ferrari provided to carry out the testing of the 2017 tires last year. As a result, there are few spare parts available, and Pirelli is not expecting repairs to be possible to allow running to resume on Friday as originally planned.

Last week, Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari's newest driver Antonio Giovinazzi conducted a test to correlate simulator data with the track. Ferrari's car launch is set for Feb. 24.