I've actually played a number of hours of GSCE and now Automobilista but I'm a rather casual player and I've never delved too much into the nuances of the game. So I have some questions regarding the information on the tires and brakes widget, example below: 1. Brake temps - I know I should get my brakes up to a certain temperature for them to be effective, but I'm not sure what that temp is. The brake icons start out as white and then (as shown above) they transition to orange. So, should I just make sure that they are in the orange range? Also, is there such a thing as brakes that are too hot? 2. Brake wear - In the above example my brakes are at 394%, so I'm assuming that until they drop below 100% I have full braking effectiveness. True? 3. Tire temps - When I leave the pits the tires show purple. When they start to heat up they go red, then orange, then yellow. Does yellow indicate that they are still too cold to be effective? The screen shot above is from the last lap of a ten lap Mitsubishi Lancer race and I don't think I ever got the tires into the yellow range. Should I be adjusting the tire pressures or other items in the setup to get more heat into the tires? I'm really finding tires a mystery. 4. Tire wear - As you can see, at the end of my ten lap race, with tire wear set to "Normal" in the settings, I'm down to 63% of wear on my right front. I'm figuring that I am probably over-driving and cause more wear than I need to. My question is, does tire performance relate directly to wear? In other words, does losing 10% of tire wear decrease grip by 10%, or is it a non-linear function? 5. Tire smoke - Looking in my mirror I often see tire smoke when I'm racing, although I try to not cause it to occur. Would it be true to say that causing any tire smoke is bad? In other words, if I'm driving through a corner in such a way that a tire smokes, then that is NOT the way to drive through the corner? Thanks for taking the time to read these questions. For a lot of you this stuff may seem obvious, but I'd really like to learn more about this great game.
Just an update... yes, I just figured out that you can't adjust the tire pressures in the Mitsubishi Lancer class. Oh well...
I am interested in some of the answers myself, but I can help you a bit with 3 and 4: 3. I haven't played enough with the widget to say which color signifies what, but usually operating temps for race car tires are in the 70-100 degree Celsius range. It's a bit colder for street tires (below 60 for normal street tires, around 70 for road legal semi slicks). Overheating the tires will give you less grip and wear them faster! In terms of pressure I try to shoot for even pressure across all wheels in racing conditions when making a very serious setup, but usually I leave the pressures alone when I just slap something together quickly. On very high speed tracks slightly higher pressures can give you more top speed though, at the cost of some low speed grip. 4.It's non-linear. AFAIK it shows how much tread you have left before you will have a puncture. In my experience grip doesn't really drop off until you reach about 70% and then it stays somewhat stable down to about 40% where it really starts going downhill. At 0% you will have a puncture very soon. Edit: 5. Yes. Although it looks cool. Dust in offroad races is of course another story as well.
Thanks for the reply! That's some good info. By the way, in my image example I'm using imperial units, I should have mentioned that. Although I guess that it wouldn't be likely that I'm running a tire at 207 degrees Celsius
My 2 cents..... Avoid tire smoke! The brakes are normally locking and you wear them out very fast. Adjust brake bios and strength to avoid this. When you brake, you want the brakes at about 400deg C under hard braking. Also, make sure they don't cool down too much from corner to corner. Tires If you need a bit more grip at the back, lower the pressure by about 10 but they will get hotter faster. Depending on the direction of the track (Clock-wise or Anti-clockwise) one side will run hotter than the other. Open-wheelers are good at around 100deg C. Play around during test day until you feel the car is behaving well with your driving style.
Thanks for the info, I'll keep those temps in mind. And I've decided to get in step with most of the rest of the world and switch to metric and kph. I kept getting confused when my lap times were reading out in units of furlongs per fortnight
1. if brakes temps are implemented realisticaly - in modern F1 cars under 400 °C they basicaly don`t brake, when reaching ~450 they start to brake with temps raising to 1000 - 1200 °C at the peak of braking process ..
1. so it seems to be about right .. in F1 2014 (Reiza) temps are rising to 1000 °C and at the end of longest straight dropping to ~500°C on Nurburgring.. with default setup 2. brake wear should show 100% and go down .. your 394% must be a bug ...
