After enjoying some casual laps in a 2002, I thought I would go for a spin in a F-USA car. Out of the pits it was all shock and awe as I had wheel spin and panicked wheel sawing after the line. After a few corners I gave too much throttle and pushed the front of the car off line. I locked up the tires trying to fix my error, and slid off track. As I floated along the loamy turf, I watched a small tire wall grow ever larger ahead of my car. Just before I struck the wall I noted I was going 7km/h. This resulted in 100% damage to my front left suspension, and removal of my front wing. I am not saying I shouldn't have any damage from off roading in an aero car, but should the tire walls be that violent in their collecting of wayward cars?
You could reduce the damage multi in the gameplay settings. There might be also track elements, that are still requiring a bit suspension of disbelief, so maybe it's something similar here like the bollards at Donington destroying suspensions of tintops even quite quickly. But overall, formula suspensions are just built for stress in 2 directions really. Any application of force in the wrong direction and they break quite easily actually. Front wings are also relatively "light" parts, that aren't the strongest ones. Maybe you're at 200% damage multi though, would check that first. This setting is indeed pretty hardcore then.
I would personally say, that 200% actually isn't unrealistic, but it's not wise from a gameplay perspective if you're not a pinpoint precise driver, doing nothing else and dreaming about racing lines while sleeping. 100% is probably less frustrating and 150% a good compromise to not go crazy if another car rams into you.
I was running 100. I'm still learning aero cars. However, I've banged into other cars in a race (trying to avoid on track pile up) with a fairly large closing speed with no damage. I can video it for ref
Yeah like stated, perfectly possible, that some trackside objects might cause higher damage than expected. Wouldn't be surprised this is the case.
It certainly not exactly the same, like it's another car and probably a bit faster than 7kmh, but remember Verstappen's 2020 Hungary crash. Suspenion gone, wing gone: Here's one from CART, also probably not exaclty the same, but those cars are somewhat flimsy:
