What % surface water is best to switch to intermediate, then heavy rain tires?

[MOPARbarrett5]

I have done the endurance races (S licence) in the rain and won them, but could never figure out when the best time to switch tire treads was. Is this personal preference or true science behind what tire is best for what % surface water?

 

[devildog666]

I have done the endurance races (S licence) in the rain and won them, but could never figure out when the best time to switch tire treads was. Is this personal preference or true science behind what tire is best for what % surface water?

This might sound weird to you but I don't switch to inters until about 55%. I tried full wets at 100% but the inters were better so I switched back.

 

[GT5Power]

Around 25-30% means inters to me. I don't use full wets though.

 

[o9lifted]

I havnet raced much in the wet yet but in gt5 I used slicks up to 25% then int up to about 75 and wet from there.

 

[devildog666]

At the 24min of lemans race I used slicks the whole race. At least half that race is wet.

 

[Whistle Snap]

^

Yep, you can run slicks in wet conditions because all the career races have the low grip driving aid selected for track conditions. With real grip selected in arcade / free run mode the cross over is in the 20% surface water range. Running slicks with a high water % with real grip is like driving on ice - it's great fun

 

[KinLM]

With grip loss set to real, I change to IM at 20% and full wets at about 50%

Set to 'low' and I run inters from 50%-100% and slicks from 0%-50%, even though I don't really need to use the inters at all.

 

[NOSaholic]

I ran one race with sports hards in the rain and never needed to change tires at all.

 

[Mini Stiggy]

I ran one race with sports hards in the rain and never needed to change tires at all.

That's because sports hard are a groves tire, unlike slicks.


I switch to inters at 25%. And wets at 70%.

 

[zujca]

I used racing hards all the time.

 

[RacingManiac]

In the Brands race and Suzuka it never got past I think 22-25% wet. RM or RH laptime drop off isn't that high at that point. The racing line gets narrower though and you can feel the grip dropoff off line...