.png)
Most of us know that when the treads of our typical car tyres are worn out, we need to change as to provide grip, hence our car will not skid easily.
But actually, the treads of our typical car serve a more important role during rainy days. They allow the water to be displaced (quickly letting the water to move into the treads) so that the tyres can still maintain contact with the road to provide the grip. Of course, if you still go too fast on a wet road, that layer of water may not be able to be displaced in time, hence grip on the road is greatly reduced and the car is likely to skid.
Especially in the recent F1 race in Singapore, due to the wet weather, the cars had to changed to hard wet tyres. Many may be puzzled why F1 cars uses smooth slick tyres during dry weather, contrary to our common sense for our typical cars. The graphic below hopes to provide some basic explanation to the wet and dry tyre and the function of the tread on tyre. Hope it helps.
The following video gives a good overview of how a tyre works. There is a lot of science behind them.
