Soft/Hard tire compounds and mileage: do they differ at all??

[Madman Apex]

i thought Nismo34 used my numbers for his example. thats's a real life example of my race at the Indy 500 in the R10 TDI. The worst part is that those lap times are of the best lap on those tyres. so by the time the 23rd lap rolled around in the RH i was probably 10-13seconds SLOWER than the lap time that was 7 seconds slower than the fastest lap on RS. the RH tyres i stretched out to 23 laps. i should have changed them around 19-20laps. I ended up loosing that race because i lost way too much time on the RM & RH tyres and left them on the car too long. i couldnt make up the gap with the RS with the remaining laps worst thing is that i lost by less than 10 seconds. on the last lap, last straight i was finally close enough to start to catch a draft from the winner. one more lap and i would have smashed him . in all honesty it was a fun drive coming up from behind like that.

 

[blaaah]

I thought they fixed it after the last update as my racing soft tyres got wrecked after 1 lap of the Ring. But then I changed to another car with the same power/PP and the wear was normal.
My first car was the Stealth F1 which ruined the tyres. I was wondering if the stealth cars had proper wear coded to the tyres and normal cars do not.
Anyone else feel their stealth cars wear out tyres too quick compared to other cars?

 

[budious]

I don't buy the explanation that its because there is more wheelspin with hard tyres... a hard tyre should always last longer than a soft.

Go try it with your real car, your comfort hards will be gone in minutes... why is that so hard to believe? Anytime you spin wheels you have friction, friction is heat, heat softens the tire compound; combined with rotation and sheer forces then little giblets of soft rubber get left behind in the track surface. Notice those dark patches of surface way on race courses, that's because tire compound has filled in all the little pores of the road surface. If you tried to reasonably prolong the life of the race hards by eliminating as much wheelspin as possible, the race hards would last longer. The tires are modeled correctly, though I think the characteristics can be masked by other factors that most of you are failing to account for.

 

[Nismo34]

i thought Nismo34 used my numbers for his example. thats's a real life example of my race at the Indy 500 in the R10 TDI. The worst part is that those lap times are of the best lap on those tyres. so by the time the 23rd lap rolled around in the RH i was probably 10-13seconds SLOWER than the lap time that was 7 seconds slower than the fastest lap on RS. the RH tyres i stretched out to 23 laps. i should have changed them around 19-20laps. I ended up loosing that race because i lost way too much time on the RM & RH tyres and left them on the car too long. i couldnt make up the gap with the RS with the remaining laps worst thing is that i lost by less than 10 seconds. on the last lap, last straight i was finally close enough to start to catch a draft from the winner. one more lap and i would have smashed him . in all honesty it was a fun drive coming up from behind like that.

Wait, yor telling me your numbers were a real life example..... FML lol.... its ok, when Maffski lets me know results then I can do all that math all over again. That still doesnt make much sense having the hards wear faster than the mediums.

EDIT:Actually, never mind. I spoke to my dad who used to do abit of racing a few years back and really knows his stufff about motorsport and he explained to me why the harder tyre will wear faster. Now it all makes sense and I dont have to do more math. YAY lol.

 

[alonsof1fan91]

I have completed already 6 out of 9 endurance races (A-Spec) and I am yet still not experiencing any differences in longelivity/mileage of harder vs softer compounds. Have checked this with both sports and racing tires.

It seems the best solution is to go softer as they will last the same laps with the harder ones anyway...

Anyone else noticed the same thing? This is a MAJOR flaw of the game, wondering if it has/will be addressed to KAZ/PD somehow...

I only did 2 tire tests till now, my test track is Grand Valley and Im simulating a 60 lap race (like the Aspec event), using no driver aids (except auto shifting with six axxis controller). But before that, I tested all tire compounds with race fuel.

- FGT with DfGT
Racing/Softs: Last about 15 laps, till lap 10 Im able to drive consistent lap times (1:23-(high)1:24). After 10 laps they get worse, I have to use the throttle more carefully, times are falling down to 1:27 (lap 15). I can use them for 2-3 laps more, but the car handles really bad with worn tires and lap times are bad

Racing/Medium: My favourite tires for the FGT. Those tires perfectly suit my driving style, I can drive almost as fast as I can drive with softs (best lap was maybe just 1 tenth off). Its very easy to make those tires last atleast 20 laps, the times started to drop off at lap 14.

Racing/Hard: Those tires are just a bit slower, but not that much. I can`t feel big difference between hards and medium in terms tire wear. But softs and mediums are way more grippier. I would say those tires are about 1 second per lap slower then racing softs.
Be careful, less grip also means that the chances of you making donuts increases. And making mistakes is very bad for your tires. If I make 2 spins with the FGT, I will definitly have to pit 5-7 laps earlier.

My strategy for grand valley 300: 2 stops, at lap 20 and lap 40, using mediums.

- Toyota Minolta(only with six axxis so far):
Well, its a group C car. With my very bad throttle control, I can`t really give a good review, but Ill try it. Im always trying to use the throttle very carefully with this car because it has a very bad traction and WAY to much power. And becomes very horrible with worn tires. Also, the differences between the tire conpounds are huge. Im more then 10 seconds slower with hards then with racing softs. And Im unable to make the hard tires survive more then 15 laps.

Racing/Softs: The car feels good, eventhough Im not pushing it to the limits, with the controller im able to make consistent 1:38 laps (Don`t know how much faster I could be with a wheel. In a FGT the difference is about 3 seconds at grand valley) at the beginning of the stint. Tires only last 10 laps... Lap times increased to 1:42 at the end.

Racing/Mediums: Its slower then softs, only able to do 1:41 laps with that tire. I can make those tires survive 12-15 laps, but the loss of gripp is huge and in the end Im cruising with 1:50 lap times or making mistakes.

Racing/Hards: Those tires have almost 0 grip. For me a 1:47 is the maximimum with that tire. They last about 15 laps.

My conclusion: For me the best tire is the soft compound because Im able to do much better lap times with them and the other tires doesn`t last that much more.

 

[stpatty]

I ran (well, started. I quit accidently when I was jabbing what I thought was increase pace whilst watching a film) the Nurburgring 24 hour race in B-Spec yesterday using an R10 Stealth Model. I hadn't done any testing with tyres beforehand, so I started them on racing softs front and back. This is how it went:

Soft/Soft: Able to run 4 laps without catastrophic tyre wear

The rear tyres were considerably more worn that the fronts however, so after two runs on soft/soft I went to:

Soft/Medium: Rear tyres were more worn than softs after the same time. On the next stint I went for:

Soft/Hard: By the middle of lap 4, the rear, hard tyres were completely worn, and the lap ended up taking about 2 minutes longer to finish (which is about 20-25-ish %)

I'm not sure if it was because I was using two different compounds at the same time, but surely this shouldn't be the case?

 

[budious]

The softer tires work better as drive tires because you waste less material on wheelspin from having less acceleration grip. The harder tires work better as non-drive tires, particularly on the front where braking stresses wear softer tires quicker, rear tires won't be subjected to the same braking forces. So try swapping your mix around so hard tire is at front and soft is on rear and report back how that works out for you.

 

[stpatty]

The softer tires work better as drive tires because you waste less material on wheelspin from having less acceleration grip. The harder tires work better as non-drive tires, particularly on the front where braking stresses wear softer tires quicker, rear tires won't be subjected to the same braking forces. So try swapping your mix around so hard tire is at front and soft is on rear and report back how that works out for you.

I think I went through every compund combination on that run, when hards are on the front they're so cold it hardly seems worth it. I am planning on doing this race on Tuesday though, so I'll get some stats then and post them here.

 

[Maffski]

Go try it with your real car, your comfort hards will be gone in minutes... why is that so hard to believe? Anytime you spin wheels you have friction, friction is heat, heat softens the tire compound; combined with rotation and sheer forces then little giblets of soft rubber get left behind in the track surface. Notice those dark patches of surface way on race courses, that's because tire compound has filled in all the little pores of the road surface. If you tried to reasonably prolong the life of the race hards by eliminating as much wheelspin as possible, the race hards would last longer. The tires are modeled correctly, though I think the characteristics can be masked by other factors that most of you are failing to account for.

Good point 👍
I know what you mean, however road tyres get shredded not just because they are hard, but because of the block/groove pattern squidging around which generates heat and in turn the blocks and grooves get torn away by the road surface, so its not quite as relevant to the sports tyres as they have less grooves/blocks and certainly would have little to no effect on Racing slicks as they are... well... slick.


But yeah you do have a point in the real world vs GT world argument relating to realism, but thats straying into a whole other topic albeit related. I'm thinking (and do correct me if I'm wrong) that what we're trying to establish is whether there is any point in ever using Hard compounds in-game and in turn discover if there is a tyre wear bug /glitch, it is clearly worth looking into as there are people raising an eyebrow or two.



@Nismo34 - I've done some testing, 25 laps at TM in a stock M3 CSL on Sports Hards and it has given me a good baseline to work to, the tyres were near shot by the end. I will continue the tests tomorrow on Sports Softs when not so tired. I'll make replays available to any that are interested to see exactly how I'm carrying it out, but I wouldn't recommend watching me hotlap for 40 minutes as compulsory viewing. Either way you can expect the sports tyres results tomorrow, I'll look into the testing the Racing tyres, but really do not like running on Racing Softs as they're not fun... we shall see.

 

[SouthernOracle]

I just had my first experience with endurance races and tire management a few days ago on Grand Valley 300k. I was using the BMW M1 concept with minimal mods (air filter, ecu, sport cat/muffler). I started the race with sports soft and they were pretty worthless by lap 15. I was making sure I wasn't spinning the rears on exit and not locking the fronts when breaking. I was trying my best to not overheat them at all. It happened occasionally but seeing them red was an infrequent occurrence.

I didn't want to have 4 stops in the race so I went to sports mediums at my first stop. The mediums lasted 32 laps until lap 47 when I changed back to sports softs. By the end of the race (lap 60) the softs were almost gone again. My best lap with the softs was 2:07. With the mediums it was 2:10.

I'm not sure what I'm doing differently than you guys but tire wear and performance seems to be working fine for me. Or maybe sport tires are right and race aren't.

 

[budious]

But yeah you do have a point in the real world vs GT world argument relating to realism, but thats straying into a whole other topic albeit related. I'm thinking (and do correct me if I'm wrong) that what we're trying to establish is whether there is any point in ever using Hard compounds in-game and in turn discover if there is a tyre wear bug /glitch, it is clearly worth looking into as there are people raising an eyebrow or two.

.

I think it's reasonably supported through in game evidence. Measure braking forces on tire wear versus acceleration forces on tire wear; also take into consideration that at tracks like Indy where there are many high speed corners you also have more centrifugal forces at work on the tire than you would at other courses.

If you can run through the corner at a higher pace of speed at a tighter inside turn radius because you equipped the car with race soft, then the tire is subjected to more centrifugal force but stays on the driving line because the soft compound has a greater limit of adhesion; swap over to a hard compound and the car cannot hold that line so it will break loose and slide sideways in the corner, exhibiting friction and sheering compound under centrifugal force. Readjust your driving line to stay further outside without attempting to take the inside corner as you would with soft compound and measure if there is a rate change.

 

[Vinura]

by skinny you mean tyres that arent wide? or do you mean the tyre's profile?

Yeh, talking about width. Although it would be better if they gave a choice of standard tyre sizes, ie 225/45/17 etc.

 

[alonsof1fan91]

I forgot to add something: Eventhough the FGT and Minolta are MRs, all 4 tires always had similar level of damage.

I just bought a 908, gonna test it soon as possible!

 

[Maffski]

Results are in...

Ran these laps in a stock M3 CSL with chassis refresh and engine refresh performed before each run in the interests of consistency, all aids turned off except for ABS which was set at 1, trackside grip level was set to 'real' and the test was made using a G25 wheel set to Simulation/FFB @ 5. First couple of laps I naturally took it easy so as not to spin up the cold tyres and wear them unnecessarily and then drove carefully to avoid sliding and/or spinning the wheels, faster times would easily be do-able but it would have taken a lot of life off the tyres.

As you can see and as was expected virtually no difference in wear rate was detected in the 25 laps I ran. Interestingly I noticed that on each run at about lap 17 or 18 the car would get squirrelly and it shows in the lap times, after then the car did settle a bit but if it were a race I'd have definitely been thinking about pitting round about lap 17. By the end of the tests all three types of tyres had roughly 25% of tread left according to the gauge, its a shame a more accurate reading could not be taken, but they looked about equal to me.

If anyone wants the replays PM me, but be warned they're about 40 mins long each and really are not very exciting.


Results including first lap:-

Results with first lap removed for clarity

 

[TK42OnE]

Racing soft tires on a NASCAR stock car, at Daytona, last just as long as Racing hard tires on a NASCAR stock car, at Daytona.

That seems to me to be a pretty clear indication that there is no difference in tire wear between the two.

In the previous GT games, Hard tires took longer to heat up, and gave less grip, but lasted very very much longer than Soft tires, which heated up quicker and gave better grip, under all conditions.

This is the issue the op is referring to and he is correct.

 

[MustangRyan]

Sports tires seem to be ok, but the real problem is with the fact that RACING hard tires don't last significantly longer, if at all, over RACING soft tires.

For anyone that played GT4, you could definitely go a lot longer on Racing Super Hard tires than you could on Racing Super Soft tires. The harder compounds definitely lasted longer while the softer compounds definitely had much better grip, up and down all 5 compounds of tire.

In GT5, Racing Hard tires have no strategic advantage at all, because you still get worse grip, but no increased tire life at all.

 

[Samus]

Yep, pretty conclusive evidence throughout this thread. This is something that needs fixing, I don't really want to do the 24 hour races pitting every half an hour because the hard tyres don't last as long as they should.

 

[smalldave]

Test 1
My 908 at sarthe in prep for le mans, all aids off bar abs=1. (used wheel)

there was about a 5 sec laptime difference between hard medium and soft going from 3:28.xx for hard, 3:23.xx for medium, 3:18.xx for soft.

i wasnt driving at 100% becuase i wanted to see whether being more careful with the tyre made a huge amount of difference.

the main difference i could tell was that it was much easier to be consistent on the soft tyres compared to hards, which bounced around a bit in terms of time.

the fact i was more consistent on the softs meant the wear rate wasnt as painfull as i imagined, and i just kept spinning up the hards even though i was being careful :/

Test 2
grand valley enduro. i used my xanvia gtr '08, no upgrades, all aids off bar abs=1. (this was done with a ds3)

started on racing softs, lap times in the 1:47.xx region for about 17 laps, then began to drop, at lap 25 they were blitzed.

at my pit i put some racing hards on, and my times were around the 1:50.xx mark, and after 15 laps they began to wear and i was getting fed up with them, so pitted for softs on after 20 laps.

in that 15 lap stint at the end my times were about 1:45.xx as i was pushing more (i swear low fuel made a difference) and because i was really wanging them the began to spin up and first signs of wear were about lap 8 ish, and by the end of the race my times were about 1.49.xx ish.

hope this helps, wasnt at all scientific but some may find it useful/interesting

 

[Nismo34]

Harder tyres= Less grip therefore more wheel spin which equates to a decrease in durabilty, whether small or large.
Softer tyres= more grip therefore less wheel spin which eqautes to as good a durability as possible on that compound.
Maybe the tyre compounds are only ever so slightly different that the endurance isnt exactly noticeable in race condition. The only thing I could even suggest being fixed is a larger margin/difference between the compounds. Apart from that, there isnt exactly a problem.

 

[GTWelsh]

comfort hards last a whole lot longer than confort softs, let me tell you that now xD

 

[MerlinRPM]

FWIW

I decided to test the tires by doing burnout donuts in a high powered RWD car.

The Racing Softs and Mediums both ran out at exactly 1min 9secs
The Racing Hard however ran out at exactly 1min 15secs

I was able to repeat all results... so maybe there is something to the racing hard having "slightly" more life than a soft/medium tire.

Now in the test above I burned them until there was nothing left. I didn't test for the "lets go" factor, which generally happens at 2/3 to 50% of tread left IMHO.

One thing to note is the tires were RED HOT the entire test, so in the end I'm not sure if this test really proves anything.

 

[Tonkz]

I was in an online NASCAR league that regularly did 100 lap races. I, and many others, tried Racing Hards and Racing Softs, and there was no difference in how long they lasted. The only difference was performance... Racing Softs performing better, of course. Now this was online, but I can only assume it's the same for offline endurance races too.

I miss the tire strategies from past Gt games.

👍

I hear ya...
bring back the Super Hard, Hard, Medium, Soft, Qualifying tyres from GT4.

 

[designate-19L]

Recently did a 5-lapper at Nurb 24. Started on sports softs (though they were good enough for another lap), pitted after two laps and opted for mediums for remaining 3, just to see how I'd fare. I'd done the same race before on softs only, and the meds were just as faded into the last lap as softs would've been, if not worse.

But then, I implemented a similar strategy at Monza in the wet to better effect, and indeed they lasted long enough but only just, while the other guy went for softs again and was spinning all over the place.

Seems to depend on a number of things as to whether they actually work as expected, but it does seem a bit as though PD have just treated each compound as a kind of 'difficulty level'. I agree that they should fix it, and make harder tyres last a bit longer.

 

[Aween]

I have completed already 6 out of 9 endurance races (A-Spec) and I am yet still not experiencing any differences in longelivity/mileage of harder vs softer compounds. Have checked this with both sports and racing tires.

It seems the best solution is to go softer as they will last the same laps with the harder ones anyway...

Anyone else noticed the same thing? This is a MAJOR flaw of the game, wondering if it has/will be addressed to KAZ/PD somehow...

i found that in the 9 hour endurence i would get about 20 laps of the soft tyre and lapping at 31 seconds a lap with no editing to the car
and with hard compound i was lapping late 32s and would get 25 laps in

 

[Zenith]

You're forgetting braking. Most people here drive with ABS on 1. When you slam on the brakes to enter a corner, it puts the maximum amount of strain on the tire that the grip will allow. Since Racing Hards have less grip to give, hard braking wears them out much faster. In order to make Hards last longer, you need to be gentler on the brakes, power and corners.

I use Softs all the time.

 

[Corpsey]

The way it works is that if you use the tires to what they can barely handle anymore and you have to pit (assuming you used them properly..) you will have made up the time that it takes to pit, so that if anyone had been driving worse, they are forced to take that penalty, either by following you with crappy tires until you pit, or pitting early because they can't stand how their car is handling even though yours could be handling okay (all the while you'd be gaining time for your pit then) I think it works.... though, I still used softs all the time because there's no PP or HP restriction in a-spec, so your car makes up for when you have to pit anyways ~_~ if there was a PP restriction or HP restriction, I'm sure there would be complaints in a new form in a new thread etc. though I could be wrong.. has anyone actually tried doing an endurance race and pacing with the AI? @_@

 

[niky]

I get bored in the later parts of an enduro and pace myself at a set laptime to try to see which tires wear faster.

Racing Hards really don't have anything resembling low wear if you try to match what would be "moderate" pace on Racing Softs... you have to drive much slower to get the best life out of them. And on most tracks, "much slower" is enough to negate the advantages of pitting less often. Better to drive conservatively on Racing Softs than to gamble on any type of tire strategy.

 

[iamthomas]

Currently on the 24h Le Mans, B-Spec. I use the Audi R10 TDI and I have tried different tyre compounds on the first stints. Started on Soft, they lasted nine laps, then switched to Medium, which lasted only eight laps. Now on the latest stint I've running on Hard and they barely lasted seven laps, even had to remove the pit symbol to get the seven laps, almost didn't last to the pits...

Surely they must've switched Soft and Hard around, it's crazy as it is now.

 

[Morgoth_666]

Currently on the 24h Le Mans, B-Spec. I use the Audi R10 TDI and I have tried different tyre compounds on the first stints. Started on Soft, they lasted nine laps, then switched to Medium, which lasted only eight laps. Now on the latest stint I've running on Hard and they barely lasted seven laps, even had to remove the pit symbol to get the seven laps, almost didn't last to the pits...

Surely they must've switched Soft and Hard around, it's crazy as it is now.

This can actually be an effect of the tires all lasting the same. What happens is that on hard tires you have less available grip so you slide more and wear the tires more. The soft tires are easier to not skid and so they may actually last longer due to that. I tend to think that all the tires last about what I'd expect mediums to last.

As it is, tire choice as someone else said, is basically just a difficulty choice. And of course, driving on (racing) softs isn't any fun.

 

[chuyler1]

As it is, tire choice as someone else said, is basically just a difficulty choice. And of course, driving on (racing) softs isn't any fun.

It may dictate difficulty level when racing A-spec mode, but against online racers, there is just as much difficulty on racing softs as there is comfort softs. It's just different racing...and it can certainly be fun. Your speeds increase and braking is more forgiving, but when you reach the limit of the tire, there is less warning before they let go. Grip also depends on the car. An '86 MR2 has about the same grip on racing soft tires as a GT-R running on sport soft tires due to narrower tires.