Hard vs Soft Tires

[TyCobb]

What factors into your tire decision at the start of a day?

My rule of thumb has been Hard if I am doing anything more than 8 or so Km. Well I just hit Portugal - Amarante (95/5 gravel/tarmac) and it's 10.69Km as a single stage for the day.

I'm going to give it a go with Soft to see what happens, but really curious what tires everyone chooses for certain scenarios.

[1337]

Always soft. With soft tyres and zero tyre health, im still faster compared to hard tyres with full health.

[zefrancou]

Very long ones 18-20 kms, or rainy stages, or successive stages adding up to more than 15 kms with asphalt...then Hard tyres.
For the rest, soft ones

[TyCobb]

Aww.... now I feel like I could have won so many more stages in career. Thought wear was a bigger factor.

[cG.vahnn]

Originally posted by 1337:

Always soft. With soft tyres and zero tyre health, im still faster compared to hard tyres with full health.

I'd imagine hard tires would preform best between 25% and 90% health. ;)

[cG.vahnn]

Generally if all the stages are gravel, I'll take soft. If it's 3 stages all on tarmac, or 2 gravel stages then a 3rd on tarmac, I'll take hard.

[NTU]

I always use soft tires, never run out of tire, no matter how long the stage.

[M4rt1n93]

Originally posted by zefrancou:

Very long ones 18-20 kms, or rainy stages, or successive stages adding up to more than 15 kms with asphalt...then Hard tyres.
For the rest, soft ones

Why should hard tires be better in rain?

[zefrancou]

I have read somewhere that in WRC 7 soft tyres are slick ones and hence under the rain their grip is less efficient than hard tyres. I made several runs in quick race mode to check, I could indeed notice the difference of behaviour and in race time (which counts in the end:)) ). What is sure under sunny conditions , is that when soft tyres are worn on sucessive stages, their lack of grip becomes obvious when mounted on high suspensions 030 front-0.33 rear VS 0.2-0.24 (in catalunya). Hence I preferred to start on gravel with low and rather hard suspension to finish properly on tarmac

[M4rt1n93]

Originally posted by zefrancou:

I have read somewhere that in WRC 7 soft tyres are slick ones and hence under the rain their grip is less efficient than hard tyres. I made several runs in quick race mode to check, I could indeed notice the difference of behaviour and in race time (which counts in the end:)) ). What is sure under sunny conditions , is that when soft tyres are worn on long stages, their lack of grip becomes obvious when mounted on high suspensions 030 front-0.33 rear VS 0.2-0.24 (in catalunya)

Well, they do deffently not use slicks on gravel in WRC, and in wet you want soft tires

[zefrancou]

As I described, most often I use soft. For me the main use of hard is for long or successive stages.

[Åncient]

From what I can gather, IRL:

-----------Asphalt--------------

Soft: smoother asphalt on rainy conditions + lower temperatures, as it won't wear out too fast.

Hard: abrasive asphalt + when higher temperatures occur.

--------Gravel---------

Soft: Muddy

Hard: Compact Gravel

In-game, i'm not too sure if hards are worth it.