Tyres - number of laps

[Vrenizilla]

When it says that a wet tyre can be used for 14 - 16 laps and the weather is constantly soaked and you drive in the yellow modes, how many laps can you drive with these tyre before pitstop?

I always take fuel for the middle or high lap number - in this case 15 or 16 - if I use the yellow modes.

Do I have too much fuel in my car at the beginning of the race or is it like safety first?

[_Patrick Swayze]

Its a general stat for the tire if your car setup and driving style allow max use of the tires durability.

I have barely ever managed to live up to those stats. It's an indication, nothing more, if it says 16, you can easily deduct 4 to 6 laps.

[Tig_green]

Originally posted by _Patrick Swayze:

Its a general stat for the tire if your car setup and driving style allow max use of the tires durability.

I have barely ever managed to live up to those stats. It's an indication, nothing more, if it says 16, you can easily deduct 4 to 6 laps.

It's not too hard to make the tyres last as long as predicted in my experience. If you push too hard you may lose 1-3 laps but 4-6 sounds too much. Your car's chassis stats and your driver's smoothness effects tyre durability. AI are usually pretty good at managing their tyre life. But they might pit too late or choose wrong tyre for prevailing conditions.

To answer OP, one lap of fuel doesn't slow you down much. Usually it's better to but some extra so you can use higher engine modes. Tyre durability predictions are based on "normal" mode as far as I know (but be careful with tyre temps, too cold or too hot isn't good either for tyre life).

[PapADollaZ]

For me the graph is off, all my drivers good and bad take their tyres one lap under the delta before their pace starts to drop off due to bad tyre wear

[Brian]

Originally posted by _Patrick Swayze:

Its a general stat for the tire if your car setup and driving style allow max use of the tires durability.

I have barely ever managed to live up to those stats. It's an indication, nothing more, if it says 16, you can easily deduct 4 to 6 laps.

Deduct 4 to 6 laps?! What are you doing, staying in push the whole time?

[brawnybalboa]

The predicted tyre life is based upon driver stats, the track, and the car chassis. During the race the tyre wear will be based upon driver stats, driving setting (i.e. push v conserve) and possibly track grip (not sure on this). A big impact on tyre wear will be if you driver is battling in traffic. I generally find that running in traffic will reduce tyre life at a higher rate.


From a practical perspective even whilst running a 5* tyre wear chassis in conjunction to 5* drivers (with 18+ for smoothness) running in yellow/yellow settings, I rarely reach the lower estimate for tyre life without dropping below 25%. Due to the sudden drop in performance below 25%, you will expect to lose around 20-25% of the predicted tyre life.

[brawnybalboa]

Originally posted by Brian:

Originally posted by _Patrick Swayze:

Its a general stat for the tire if your car setup and driving style allow max use of the tires durability.

I have barely ever managed to live up to those stats. It's an indication, nothing more, if it says 16, you can easily deduct 4 to 6 laps.

Deduct 4 to 6 laps?! What are you doing, staying in push the whole time?

Or possibly they are running for maximum length races. Very easy to drop 5 laps.

[Brian]

Originally posted by brawnybalboa:

Originally posted by Brian:

Deduct 4 to 6 laps?! What are you doing, staying in push the whole time?

Or possibly they are running for maximum length races. Very easy to drop 5 laps.

Is it? I rarely miss the lower end of the lap estimation unless the driver locks up...

[Vrenizilla]

My 1st driver has only a smoothness of 5 and because of that, his tyres go down faster than my 2nd driver, because he has a better smoothness.

Maybe I should look for an average or at least smoothness paydriver with high market ability.

Which is a good smoothness? >=10 or better >=15?

Better all stats are at least average because it is a far way for a 5* chassis with an own team and I m in my 3rd season and have to save up money for the HQ and other buildings to improve.

Because of the high race weekend costs, I put the money for next year´s car to middle for the first 5 or 6 races, I m at race 4 in Peking, so a 5* chassis has to take time.

[Fritz]

I wanna say the prediction assumes you'll take tyres below 25% as the actual cliff doesn't necessarily happen until much later for the harder compounds.

Also, smoothness is a relative stat. If the grid average is 5, having a driver with 10 smoothness is pretty good. In a different season when the average is 15, 10 is not that competitive anymore.

[tullaian]

Both my current drivers have smoothness 20 and I will 100% of the time get the first # , probably (guesstimate) 75% of the time get to the middle # and maybe 25% of the time get to the top range # depending on race conditions.

I think as Fritz says you do have to drive it under the 25% mark sometimes depending on track to hit the # but, usually a few % under is ok.

Smoothness is a very important stat as an extra lap or two on each set of tires can make a huge difference in race strategy or the difference between being able to run a softer set of tires than the competition.

Wets and Intermediates fall off for wear very quickly if not driven in their preferred level of water as well , much faster than dry tires. Wets need around 70%+ track water for the entire stint.

Also when wet you usually see a high # of lockups from all the drivers, each lock up can cost you up to (5%?) tire wear which is like losing a lap each time it happens.

[Villeneuve27]

The numbers seem correct on a normal driving style without traffic. But as mentioned before, dropping below 25% will reduce your performance drasticly. Ususally i try to go for the undercut strategy. Go agressive at the start of the race pit early and go normal. this will help you to be out of traffic wiht your 2nd set of tires, it can help you to gain a position or 2, if you manage to finish the race on older tyres.

[brawnybalboa]

Originally posted by Villeneuve27:

The numbers seem correct on a normal driving style without traffic. But as mentioned before, dropping below 25% will reduce your performance drasticly. Ususally i try to go for the undercut strategy. Go agressive at the start of the race pit early and go normal. this will help you to be out of traffic wiht your 2nd set of tires, it can help you to gain a position or 2, if you manage to finish the race on older tyres.

Undercutting workds great in equivalent or inferior cars. But with a dominant package, you can do completely the opposite, I run my drivers on green/blue to save the tyres and the fuel (with exception to the first lap, for which I do red/red). Generally my drivers are competitive at the front so when the rest of the leaders pit, have a 2/3 lap window in clean air on red/red. Combination of lighter faster car and clean air normally leap frogs them back to the front. Second stint is hell for leather.

I actually just finished a race where my #1 one stopped on 40% tank. Led only for 3 laps.

[Vrenizilla]

I look on the other teams, too. They use the red tyre modi at the start to warm up their tyres and go to yellow after 1 or 2 laps. The motor modi is orange and than yellow.

I have now my car parts up to >=80% reliability, so I can drive in the red motor modi the entire race. If I have enough fuel in the car.

To be safe, I have always a calculator beside me, so I can take the right number of fuel til the first pitstop.

[Tig_green]

Originally posted by Villeneuve27:

The numbers seem correct on a normal driving style without traffic. But as mentioned before, dropping below 25% will reduce your performance drasticly. Ususally i try to go for the undercut strategy. Go agressive at the start of the race pit early and go normal. this will help you to be out of traffic wiht your 2nd set of tires, it can help you to gain a position or 2, if you manage to finish the race on older tyres.

The drop doesn't always come right after 25%, it depends on the tyre. Harder tyre compounds and wet compunds have lower drop off points (I think hardest tyre had 5%).

[Fritz]

Conditions can vary so your mileage may differ but generally these are the "idealized" drop off points at which the +8s pace penalty is added.
US-20%
SS-15%
S-10%
M-5%
H-0%
I/W-0%

However do keep in mind that (from what I've read in guides), softer compounds tend to become slower than harder compounds in their last band. This is due to softer compounds having greater variability between their fresh state (first band) and their worn state (last band) than the harder compound which only becomes slightly slower when it gets worn out. So you may notice a relative pace drop even before 25% when the tyre enters its last band.