Comfort Tyres, Advantages

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dabest2500

dabest2500

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dabest2500
I've just realised that although Comfort tyres aren't for racing, they are very useful for learning a track.
Maybe that's why they were used in the AMG Driving Academy?
I might start using comfort tyres on my FGT to learn more.
Anyone realise this before?
 
I don't see how they are helpful. It's better to learn the track on tires you'll actually use. I buy comfort softs in case I find/make an online race for cars with stock tires. Unfortunately, you have to buy these tires, and I imagine most people don't so I'm not holding my breath.
 
Firminator
That's why the description of the comforts say 'for drivers looking to perfect their technique'
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I never actually understood what it meant by that, but now I understand.
Anyone can just slap on Racing Hards and win a race.
 
Exorcet
I don't see how they are helpful. It's better to learn the track on tires you'll actually use. I buy comfort softs in case I find/make an online race for cars with stock tires. Unfortunately, you have to buy these tires, and I imagine most people don't so I'm not holding my breath.
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It's the same way that it's better to learn a track with a slower car first.
If you can learn to be fast with Comfort tyres, you'll be much faster on Racing tyres because you'll have picked out your flaws, your basically driving handicapped because Comfort tyres don't have much grip.
It's like practising running with ankle weights.
 
dabest2500
It's the same way that it's better to learn a track with a slower car first.
If you can learn to be fast with Comfort tyres, you'll be much faster on Racing tyres because you'll have picked out your flaws, your basically driving handicapped because Comfort tyres don't have much grip.
It's like practising running with ankle weights.
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Ankle weights will work out your muscles more, no? That's a little different than practicing running skill.

If you learn a track with comforts, then you will not be used to the extra grip of racing tires. It leads to a placeebo effect where you feel really fast, but you're probably crawling because the limits of the better tires seem infinite. In reality, you just don't know where the limits are and won't push the car to reach them.

If you want, test it. Do 20 laps of some track on comforts before switching to racing soft. Then either do 20 laps on the RS, or enough laps so that your laptimes settle and no longer go down. I'm pretty sure they'll be pretty high when you're just off the comforts. All of this is just a theory BTW.
 
Exorcet
Ankle weights will work out your muscles more, no? That's a little different than practicing running skill.

If you learn a track with comforts, then you will not be used to the extra grip of racing tires. It leads to a placeebo effect where you feel really fast, but you're probably crawling because the limits of the better tires seem infinite. In reality, you just don't know where the limits are and won't push the car to reach them.

If you want, test it. Do 20 laps of some track on comforts before switching to racing soft. Then either do 20 laps on the RS, or enough laps so that your laptimes settle and no longer go down. I'm pretty sure they'll be pretty high when you're just off the comforts. All of this is just a theory BTW.
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Same, my OP was just a theory too.
Otherwise if it really was a Driving Academy, they'd want to teach you something right?
So why would they give you Comfort tyres for driving in the dry and the wet.
And Comfort tyres on the SLS AMG...
Unless the Academy wants to make you slower.

Silver-Sylph
I only buy comforts if i want to drift.
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I can't drift to save my life!
 
dabest2500
Same, my OP was just a theory too.
Otherwise if it really was a Driving Academy, they'd want to teach you something right?
So why would they give you Comfort tyres for driving in the dry and the wet.
And Comfort tyres on the SLS AMG...
Unless the Academy wants to make you slower.
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You can still learn no matter what tires are on the car, so even if comfort softs don't make you a better driver, they won't make you a worse one [excpet that you probably won't use comfort soft very often, so it's sort of like wasted experience]. The tire choice basically becomes arbitray from a learning point of view. Maybe comforts were chosen for the challenge, or because they are like street tires.
 
Exorcet
You can still learn no matter what tires are on the car, so even if comfort softs don't make you a better driver, they won't make you a worse one [excpet that you probably won't use comfort soft very often, so it's sort of like wasted experience]. The tire choice basically becomes arbitray from a learning point of view. Maybe comforts were chosen for the challenge, or because they are like street tires.
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Maybe comfort tyres were used to help you get used to situations where there's less grip than usual?
Or may be to push you that bit more?
But would you agree that it's better to practice on the Nurburgring with a slow car before using a faster car? (Need to know this as I intend to learn the Nurburgring further).
 
dabest2500
Maybe comfort tyres were used to help you get used to situations where there's less grip than usual?
Or may be to push you that bit more?
But would you agree that it's better to practice on the Nurburgring with a slow car before using a faster car? (Need to know this as I intend to learn the Nurburgring further).
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It depends. If someone is impatient, then yes the slow car is better. I've taken monsterous cars onto new tracks to learn them, I just didn't push the car anywhere near the limit until I knew the track well enough.
 
Exorcet
It depends. If someone is impatient, then yes the slow car is better. I've taken monsterous cars onto new tracks to learn them, I just didn't push the car anywhere near the limit until I knew the track well enough.
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What do you mean by impatient?
Wouldn't an impatient person just take a fast car and crash it everywhere but learn slowly?
 
dabest2500
What do you mean by impatient?
Wouldn't an impatient person just take a fast car and crash it everywhere but learn slowly?
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By impatient, I mean they wouldn't be able to drive the car slowly. They would feel the need to start hot lapping right away. Maybe lacking self control would be a better term?
 
Exorcet
By impatient, I mean they wouldn't be able to drive the car slowly. They would feel the need to start hot lapping right away. Maybe lacking self control would be a better term?
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So would it be better to use a fast car or slow car to learn the Nurburgring further?
 
dabest2500
So would it be better to use a fast car or slow car to learn the Nurburgring further?
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Personally, I don't think it would make a difference. If you have the self control to drive a really fast car (like a LeMans prototype) well below its limits, it will probably be as safe or safer than driving a slow car at a moderate pace. If you mess up, you'll have plenty of space to recover.

If you're really concentrating on learning the track, then you don't want distractions. This means you probably want an easy car to drive. Some slow cars are easy to drive, but you'll probably be pushing them more (in relative terms) than you would a fast car at a slow pace.

That said, if you have an established way of learning tracks already, use that.
 
Exorcet
Personally, I don't think it would make a difference. If you have the self control to drive a really fast car (like a LeMans prototype) well below its limits, it will probably be as safe or safer than driving a slow car at a moderate pace. If you mess up, you'll have plenty of space to recover.

If you're really concentrating on learning the track, then you don't want distractions. This means you probably want an easy car to drive. Some slow cars are easy to drive, but you'll probably be pushing them more (in relative terms) than you would a fast car at a slow pace.

That said, if you have an established way of learning tracks already, use that.
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Thanks for the advice 👍
I'm starting the really love the Nurburgring, almost as much as Suzuka!
I feel that I need to know it like the back of my hand :D
 
A good neutral handling car is more important than whether it's fast or slow. You can control the speed with the go pedal...but you can't "fix" bad handling on the track without wrestling with the car, which takes away from learning the track.
 
calan_svc
A good neutral handling car is more important than whether it's fast or slow. You can control the speed with the go pedal...but you can't "fix" bad handling on the track without wrestling with the car, which takes away from learning the track.
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A bad handling car I find, improves my skill to cope with different cars.
It helps you learn to drive with a bad car which you will eventually have to drive, or just drive for fun to make a race against the AI competitive.
 
Me personally I like learning on Sport softs.
They're less forgiving than racing tires but they force you to be smoother (due to less grip).

Once I feel I'm starting to push the tires, I swap em for racing tires and get used to them. Then I see what lap times I can pull off.

With comforts I feel like I'm fighting the tire more than learning the track
 
dabest2500
It helps you learn to drive with a bad car which you will eventually have to drive...
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But not while trying to learn a track. For example, how do you know if that turn that is giving you trouble is due to an off camber condition on the track that you should attack differently, or because you are fighting with a crappy car setup?
 
With low grip, your line becomes much more important - and the line is the single most important part of a fast lap regardless of tyre. I'm not sure there's any real advantage to running the FGT on comforts, but on a normal-ish car it can be a lot of fun, and help develop smoothness.

Slapping on better tyres just modifies braking points, mid-corner speeds and how hard you can mash the throttle on the exit. So it's sort of like just speeding things up a touch - or, conversely, the comfort tyres (along with short / early shifting, or driving a less powerful car) give you more time to observe everything around you and derive the ultimate line.

Driving "awful" cars every now and then is fine, too - it helps you build up a "I can drive anything" portfolio that all the best drivers have. Variety, and all that.
 
I was driving my tuned NSX Type R yesterday (thanks RKM for the fantastic tune!), and with comfort softs it's just a blast, you have alot less grip but it forces you to be smooth. There is definitely something to be learned from using comfort tyres every now and then.
 
Comfort Softs, personally, help develop smoothness. Particularly smoothness on the throttle and brake. Learning to be careful and in what situations to be careful can be important.

It helps you to recognize which corners are trouble or potential trouble. Hit a corner right nine times out of ten with Sports tires or Racing tires, and you might get a slight wobble on that tenth time. Hit it right nine times out of ten with Comfort tires and you will get a wobble sometimes even when you get it right, and that tenth time you will go off sideways as the camber throws you off the road. In the second scenario, you build up a better picture of why a corner is tricky or difficult. And you can apply that knowledge to racing, where, when jostling for position, you might not be taking the optimum line.

Of course... if the car didn't come on CS, and you're never going to race it in CS, it can be pointless in "learning" this way. Personally, I just drive the car on whatever tires it comes on "stock" in the game and leave it at that.

And learning a track with a tricky car is pointless unless that's the car you're going to be racing on that track... though for competitive racing, I'd stay away from tricky cars and focus on those with more predictable handling.
 
Fun fact: Comfort hard tires don't wear out for a long time.
 

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