Question about Tyres...

[jucksmanBR]

Hi Guys.

I'm preparing my car (Weider Honda HSV-010) for my online league race, and found something weird regarding tyre behaviour while doing a race simulation this morning.

We are racing with engine tuning and turbo upgrades prohibited, so my Honda is pretty much stock, with only braking in and oil changes, limited to 500bhp.

The race is 35 laps and we have to use both soft and medium tyres, so I'm preparing to start on softs. During my race simulation, this is what happened:

- With soft tyres: They lasted for 15 laps (tyre bar a little under halfway), lapping consistently 1:46.9 and a best lap of 1:46.3 and I felt I could still push for a couple more laps before my pitstop

- With medium tyres: They lasted for 15 laps (tyre bar a little under halfway), lapping consistently 1:47.3, with a best lap of 1:46.9. In the final 5 laps (lap 30 to 35), the times dropped and the car felt like it was on ice. No grip whatsoever.

What I found weird is this huge tyre consumpcion with medium tyres, because I expeced them to last much more than the softs. I also find strange that they were so fast, lapping almost the same times as the soft tyres.

Is this normal??

 

[Adrenaline]

I'm not sure I follow.
You're implying the tire wear is close, but then mention Mediums going to lap 35, just with less grip, but say that the softs you had to pit 'maybe a couple after 15'
Can you clarify?

More often than not, i tend to notice people overdriving on lesser tire grades, simply because they aren't use to them. This results in more sliding, spinning and they end up wearing the tires down nearly as fast.

4 tenths a lap isn't much, should be more, but depends on the track.
Even so, 4 tenths a lap, over 15 laps is a 6 second gap.

Personally I'd start the race on the weaker tire grade, when the field is bunch up, allowing you to use the draft, stay out until lap 20, then run the last 15 laps on softs as hard as you can and pull away from those on mediums who used the reverse strategy.

 

[jucksmanBR]

I'm not sure I follow.
You're implying the tire wear is close, but then mention Mediums going to lap 35, just with less grip, but say that the softs you had to pit 'maybe a couple after 15'
Can you clarify?

More often than not, i tend to notice people overdriving on lesser tire grades, simply because they aren't use to them. This results in more sliding, spinning and they end up wearing the tires down nearly as fast.

4 tenths a lap isn't much, should be more, but depends on the track.
Even so, 4 tenths a lap, over 15 laps is a 6 second gap.

Personally I'd start the race on the weaker tire grade, when the field is bunch up, allowing you to use the draft, stay out until lap 20, then run the last 15 laps on softs as hard as you can and pull away from those on mediums who used the reverse strategy.

Thanks for the reply, Adrenaline. What I've found weird is that the softs and mediums lasted for about 15 laps each, with lap times very similar. I was expecting a bigger gap between them, and also to the mediums to last longer.

I was thinking about starting on mediums, but that would mean that I had to qualify in that compound (League rule: you have to start with the same tyre you qualified with) and I'm concerned about getting stuck on traffic.

Luckily I'll have a race simulation tonight to test the mediums again. I'll try to be less aggressive - maybe that will make the mediums last longer. :-)