Tyre choice doesn't matter?

[Lowry]

I find that the option to service the vehicle comes up way too often, 2 to 3 events i can basically have a brand new car everytime i come to service, so i just pick the soft tyre always. What about in wet conditions? what do you pick then?

[Ochso]

Iirc Only Germany and Spain . Give a wet option. And is dependant on car and skill levels.

Eg career you see 1 long wet and 1 short dry before next service - then Wet.. If 1` short wet and 1 long dry - Up to you and your ability.
Hardest in a club scenario would be Bald, worn dry tyres after 8 long dry tarmac stages (no services ) and the last 4 are wet runs same tarmac/ cobbles . In relation to the tyres they never blow due to wear alone, and wet tyres have virtual infinite wet grip.

Try it in custom championships see how long you last/ far you get..

[Cotivity]

You're a legend then, cause I can't keep these meats fresh any longer than a stage or 2. If you want an attrition challenge, play the A.I. monthlies.

[Ochso]

Originally posted by Cotivity:

You're a legend then, cause I can't keep these meats fresh any longer than a stage or 2. If you want an attrition challenge, play the A.I. monthlies. :summer2019flag:

Alas you most probably were not around for the Survivathons Run by SaxonRaider. ( circa 3 years total run time ) https://steamcommunity.com/app/690790/discussions/0/4420805388071765892/

As for "legend" - nope not ever , (Maybe "in my own underpants" as the saying goes) - Just a glutton for punishment.

[Mjarr]

As Ochso noted, asphalt is the only time where tyre choices really matter. On gravel it can be summarised that always softs, unless you don't trust your ability to drive with bald (=worn) softs, then stick to mediums. Bald softs can be somewhat unpredictable without practice or prior experience, but they are always faster than fresh mediums in contrast. Hard tyres are there mostly for giggles, say how well you can do with hard tyres vs AI or if you want to compare the sheer difference of the tyres overall.

That being said there is very slightly more minor nuance between softs vs mediums in terms of few or no services if you can genuinely drive at top 0.3% pace or better consistently, but even then one still could argue if you do your own tunes and know how to account bald softs, they still will end up faster majority of the time over mediums.

As for asphalt, unless you know what you are doing I would recommend always taking wets in career. One single bad crash or couple of spinouts in wet can easily offset any gains you made in the dry and the distances prior service are relatively short where it can get much more painful. If you were doing custom event, then it really depends ratio of wet vs dry (after all no random weather) and have you practiced driving without wets. The offset can get exponentially worse with 2WD cars.

[karik_FIN_134]

In my small&brief test with R5 car in Wales (medium gravel) soft and medium tires are equally fast options in 50-60km of driving without changes. Beyond 60km mediums is maybe way to go and to get hard tires to be best option then idk u need maybe closer to 80-100+km driving without tire changes.

Compared to real life then drivers often have mix tires like 2 soft and 2 mediums diagonally for a leg of 3-4 stages totalling at 60-70km racing +road sections and maybe have either 2 soft or medium spares in boot and those are changed on at some point in that 60km leg on road section.

[Ochso]

Simplistic rule of thumb ( my own insights for long stages - so take it with a pinch of salt If you want) for the tyre wear model.
Tyres have 3 main tread wear level New , Used, Worn
Softs hit Worn after 4 Long stages
Meds hit worn after 6
Hards hit worn after 8

At worn status the difference between grip levels tyres is considerably less to a near constant. But there is a grip trend in wet gravel conditions though smaller.

Note As I already mentioned You cannot get a puncture through tyre wear alone but the Chance of getting a puncture through knocking them increases. and that is proportionate the softness . ergo softs puncture more easily than hards and that trend is amplified at worn status . However sometimes you will lose in the RNG dice roll

Wet tyres when driven in dry will hit Worn in circa 3 stages
A worn wet on dry tarmac for me is considerably easier to control than New. as there seems to be less "grip twitching " for want of a better term ( Think racing slicks but not as fast) Wet tarmac conditions the grip levels remains pretty much constant if a little lessened regardless of wear status..
The same can be said of winter tyres

Snow tyres are a law unto themselves

[karik_FIN_134]

Softs can hit worn after 24km (15miles) or earlier depending on gravel type, at least they did for me in Wales medium gravel in R5 worn-state before 25km.

Then there's cars with increased tire wear, certain overpowered cars have this and in Wales softs will drop to worn at 19km or before 20km or about 12miles (had this personally happen in F2 Kit Car when testing and comparing against R5 car soft tire wear).

Amount of wheelspin, speed/pace, car setup etc doesn't increase or affect tire wear. It is distance based and then extra wear in some cars is decided upfront to happen at that certain higher rate (can be much more complicated this extra wear in certain cars, like if R5 are 100% wear rate, then there can be cars with 110% wear rate, some cars with 120% wear-rate etc).

- Argentina is heavy gravel and softs will drop earlier to worn in R5's, maybe by 16km (10miles).
- Finland is light gavel so softs maybe last 32km (or 20miles) in R5's before dropping to worn.

[Mjarr]

Originally posted by karik_FIN_134:

In my small&brief test with R5 car in Wales (medium gravel) soft and medium tires are equally fast options in 50-60km of driving without changes. Beyond 60km mediums is maybe way to go and to get hard tires to be best option then idk u need maybe closer to 80-100+km driving without tire changes.

Based on my own experience running softs in marathon events without services as well as having used mediums and hards in them, softs (on gravel) are always faster at least relative to my pace regardless is it 2WD or 4WD car and the difference can be easily anywhere between 3 to 8 minutes depending on location in total time. The biggest difference mostly is that there is a little bit different risk management since the difference of fresh vs bald softs is pretty massive, while mediums have more gradual curve to it and hards basically are consistently "♥♥♥♥" no matter what (and thus sometimes really fun to drive vs AI especially). Parroting what Ochso said, blowing tyres due wear is simply impossible in the game for players.

Spain or Germany on the other hand can get funny since it's really down to ratio of wet vs dry stages and how much you want to risk it or even practice bit of driving on wet without wets, or set the car bit differently for redundancy. Although I am not 100% sure if wet tyres are 100% fresh always in wet, but the difference of fresh wets in wet vs bald wets in wet is probably small enough you have to be able to drive within +-10s of WR pace per long stage to even notice the difference if it even exists.

Originally posted by Ochso:

Simplistic rule of thumb ( my own insights for long stages - so take it with a pinch of salt If you want) for the tyre wear model.
Tyres have 3 main tread wear level New , Used, Worn
Softs hit Worn after 4 Long stages
Meds hit worn after 6
Hards hit worn after 8

At worn status the difference between grip levels tyres is considerably less to a near constant. But there is a grip trend in wet gravel conditions though smaller.

Based on some rough tests of my own by setting services for each stage but keeping the same tyres, all tyres hit worn (aka bald) roughly after the same amount of stages as far as service info goes about their state. Now there might be slightly different layers of worn status, so just because it says worn it could be "freshly worn" vs "it's really worn" that the game won't tell but technically takes into consideration, but honestly it mostly boils down to the question of degradation since bald softs + degraded surface is hell of a wild ride, while bald mediums (or even hards) vs degraded surface has more consistent feel to it and naturally because you won't be necessarily pushing as hard anymore once you feel it won't feel as good.

But to be fair there is always the subjective element that you can do really good times with mediums (or even pretty good times with hards) and the question of subjective pace, skill, even bit of style and cars involved can influence that, since with bald softs one bad mistake can get much more costlier than more safer pace with bald mediums even you were clearly outpacing your own pace before that.

Late edit: there is one thing where mediums or hards have minor advantage over softs in marathon events and that is with spare tyres, since the game does account in some ways that you just slapped fresh tyre in midst of bald ones. If you had small crash that caused minor steering issues + need to swap a tyre, it can make cornering really janky experience unless you are good at adapting to it until that tyre gets bald as well.