Does cold tyres actually affect tyre wear?

[rory]

Trying to save the tyres as the Haas I inherited is ♥♥♥♥ at saving it's tyres, the temperature shows it's right down at the bottom and the Drivers are claiming its affecting the tyre wear, is it true?

[Elrick IV]

yes. Tyres wear out at both ends of the scale, hot and cold

[Westrum]

This is still being discussed. General consensus is that its only max and min that have any impact. Between those two extremes, it does not matter.

[Person012345]

Yes, when the tyres are to cold they will grain (which is where the tyre starts to mildly shred) thus reducing tyre life.

[rory]

Does it mean you are better off pushing to get the temps up?

[B✪✪tsy]

The exception is being behind the safety car. The tyres can be bottom cold then without any extra wear.

[Voidstar]

Here's what I found regarding tyre wear from digging through the de-compiled source:

Above minimum tyre temperature the tyre wear rate is modified by the current driving style:
attack = +20%
push = +10%
conserve = -10%
backup = -20%

At minimum tyre temperature the tyre wear rate is always the same as if the driving style was set to neutral.

Tyres dont wear at all in the pitlane.

Intermediate and wet compounds double tyre wear rate when the water on track is less than 15%.

Tyre wear rate is halved under safety car.


Therefore to answer your question, tyre temperature only effects wear rate when the temperature is at the minimum and then it only prevents you from benefiting from the wear reduction from running lower driving styles than neutral. This limits the amount you can actually stretch the lifetime of the tyres from running lower driving styles. When your tyre temperature hits the bottom you might as well turn the driving style back up to neutral so you no longer take the performance hit since the wear rate will be the same.

[Greygamer]

Is it safe to assume that at minimum/maximum tyre temperature you will get a message from the driver. I have had a few races where it has been very difficult to build any temperature in the tyres, they have gone cold but not reached the bottom of the temp gauge.

Currently I feel I have to watch that gauge like a hawk.

If you turn the engine up will this also increase tyre wear?

[Voidstar]

I don't know about messages from the driver but from what I can see tyre temperature only has an effect when the gauge is either right at the top or bottom, ie: full hot or full cold. Anything in-between has no effect.

When the tyre temp is fully cold the tyre wear is effected as I described above. When the tyre temp is full hot then the performance gain from driving style is capped as if you were running in neutral driving style.

Engine mode doesn't have any direct effect on tyre wear, only the things I mentioned in my previous post. I don't think it even has any indirect effect as a result of lapping faster or slower since as far as I can see tyre wear is calculated based on distance covered.

[Person012345]

Originally posted by Greygamer:

Is it safe to assume that at minimum/maximum tyre temperature you will get a message from the driver. I have had a few races where it has been very difficult to build any temperature in the tyres, they have gone cold but not reached the bottom of the temp gauge.

Currently I feel I have to watch that gauge like a hawk.

If you turn the engine up will this also increase tyre wear?

Don't worry about it too much. Yes the driver will give you a message when his tyres are too hot or cold. Having the temperature in the good range is the most efficient way of racing, but what you should do really depends on your strategy, and I think pushing will still wear the tyres faster than bottoming out on normal (not 100% sure but I think). In any case, whatever difficulties you're having, the other cars are having it too.

[Voidstar]

Originally posted by Person012345:

Originally posted by Greygamer:

Is it safe to assume that at minimum/maximum tyre temperature you will get a message from the driver. I have had a few races where it has been very difficult to build any temperature in the tyres, they have gone cold but not reached the bottom of the temp gauge.

Currently I feel I have to watch that gauge like a hawk.

If you turn the engine up will this also increase tyre wear?

Don't worry about it too much. Yes the driver will give you a message when his tyres are too hot or cold. Having the temperature in the good range is the most efficient way of racing, but what you should do really depends on your strategy, and I think pushing will still wear the tyres faster than bottoming out on normal (not 100% sure but I think). In any case, whatever difficulties you're having, the other cars are having it too.

I don't think that maintaining tyre temperature has any effect on race efficiency since the gain/cost of running higher driving styles is perfectly mirrored by the lower driving styles. For example cycling between push and conserve is no different to just running neutral continuously since the -10% wear rate from conserving is cancelled out by the +10% wear rate from pushing. The same perfect mirror is also true of the performance gain from running different driving styles. Similarly if you're trying to make the tyres last as long as possible then allowing the tyres to just sit at the bottom of the temp gauge on neutral driving style is no different in terms of tyre wear to pushing them to warm them back up a bit before flicking back to a lower driving style until they hit the bottom of the temp gauge again.

The difference is that making the effort to maintain good tyre temperature keeps your strategic options open, allowing you to push passed cars in-front or effect an undercut when needed and then preserve tyres to last the stint when you're under no immediate threat.

[Fritz]

It's not a perfect mirror because ambient air temp can change over the course of a race which means the tyre behavior changes. Similarly, depending on various factors it is sometimes easier to gain heat than it is to lose it. Occasionally it might be the opposite. Either way, there are a number of various factors that break the mirror symmetry.

[Greygamer]

Okay
Thanks everyone to your answers :)

[Person012345]

Originally posted by Voidstar:

I don't think that maintaining tyre temperature has any effect on race efficiency since the gain/cost of running higher driving styles is perfectly mirrored by the lower driving styles. For example cycling between push and conserve is no different to just running neutral continuously since the -10% wear rate from conserving is cancelled out by the +10% wear rate from pushing. The same perfect mirror is also true of the performance gain from running different driving styles. Similarly if you're trying to make the tyres last as long as possible then allowing the tyres to just sit at the bottom of the temp gauge on neutral driving style is no different in terms of tyre wear to pushing them to warm them back up a bit before flicking back to a lower driving style until they hit the bottom of the temp gauge again.

The difference is that making the effort to maintain good tyre temperature keeps your strategic options open, allowing you to push passed cars in-front or effect an undercut when needed and then preserve tyres to last the stint when you're under no immediate threat.

It's more efficient because you drive faster. As in, you get the benefit of the pushing with only the penalty of pushing, you aren't getting extra penalties. Like I said, I think pushing still wears the tyres faster, but this is motor racing we're talking about, when I say "efficient" I mean time-efficient (including pit stops). In your example, the difference between bumping up to a higher style is that you go faster while you're on that style. If there were no difference in wear between pushing and bottoming out on normal, then it would ALWAYS be preferential to push to keep the tyre temps up because the tyre wear would be the same but the time around the track would be faster. However, I think that pushing tends to use the tyres faster than staying on normal on cold tyres, so it's not an open and shut case as to which is better, it will depend on the race and the strategy. But in terms of efficiency, keeping the tyre temp in the good zone is better, you get the full performance of the tyre with normal wear, instead of extra wear.

[CGoody564]

What about tire temp and performance? Let's say my tire temp is at max. My driver tells me something along the lines of "I'm not getting a benefit from pushing anymore". I understand the wear rate increases at this point, but does my car go slower if I continue pushing? Or is the wear rate the only thing effected by the max tire temp? If only wear rate is effected, that is a bad way for the driver to word what he's saying. If my tire wear is much less than anyone else on the field, I don't mind the increased wear rate as long as the performance is still increased; However if the car does in fact slow down or not gain any benefit from being pushed with max temps, I would probably be more concerned with bringing the temp back down.

[morpheus]

i made a test run a while ago with red and orange push levels.

both were consistently capped at the top for tire temps.

red wear rate was higher, orange therefore overtook red after a couple of laps and was still going strong when red already had a blown tire.