Good morning LFS-mates!

I'd like to discuss about your experiences in heating tire espacally on turn-based tracks (like BL for example).



With many turns it is good to set up a negative roll, which causes the inside to heat up more than the center or outside of the tire as the picture above shows.

I always wondered how to set up your tires so that their temperature brings out the best grip.

So I optimized the inside temperature for the optimum tire temperature and tried this for a long time.

After that I tried optimized the temperature on the centre, causing the inside being overheated, but I still hat the feeling it had better grip than optimizing the inside temperature.

The last method would be optimizing inside and centre to the tire's optimum temperature, but I got the feeling this setting had the lowest grip of all three.


So I'd like to aks you about your experiences:
- Do you use one of the three methods - and if so, which is the best in your oppinion?
- Do you set up all your tires so they get more or less the same temperature development or do you set them up on how the feel during the race causing high temperature differences between tires?
- And as the last one, maybe some hint's I didn't thought of if you like (like loosing the heck if rear tires heat up more than front tires, short/ long distance races ect.)?


Thanks in advance!

This is one thing I've always struggled with. Especially in longer GTR races I usually fail on an epic scale as I don't seem to grasp how to manage tyre temperatures. Often I start to lose heat very rapidly during the mid-part of the stint and then it's:

Ice, ice, baby... dun-dun-dun-duhduh... ice, ice, baby...

EDIT: BTW... I think for instance Kyoto GP would be a better example as it punishes tyres a lot more than Blackwood.

The problem is to find the right balance between camber and tyre pressure... As I setup my cars for doing longer races (> 1 hour), I go for low camber and high pressures... I found to get the best performance if the tires slightly overheat (orange, not red) in the first parts of a stint, but then settle in around the optimal temperature across the tread (difference between in- and outside not more than 10-15° C)... Yes, that requires some fiddling and longer tests...

The only real way to find out is to do a bunch of testing... Its not just the car or the track, its also the driver and his (her) driving habits, suspension settings, toe settings, etc etc.

I like to find a good balance in my tires. Generally, you always want the insides of the tires to be the warmest, followed by the middle, follow by the outside. You dont want any more than a 10-15*C difference from inside to outside.

As for tire pressure, it depends on the race. Longer races i generally use high tire pressures. Shorter races i use lower tire pressures. With that being said, it may vary as per your car setup. The general rule here is that you want the inside to be warmer than the middle, and the middle warmer than the outside. Too much tire pressure and the middle of your tires will heat up faster, too little and the outsides will heat up faster.

All this being said, the best thing to do is a lot of testing to find what works for you. There is no set formula.

This is how I do it, it's by no means the only way to do it, or the best, but I find it works.

I normally work on half race distance, and look to have my tyres temp peaking around half distance.

Once I am happy with my pressure settings on a "known" camber setting, I then look to set the camber, firstly I run half distance again, and try to "zero" the temps, i.e. have the temp the same across the whole tyre.

Once I have my zero'd camber setting, I then look to adjust the camber to give me (depending on car and tyre compound) between 5-10C temp difference from the inside to the outside.

I find it works for me, there is no best way to do it, it just takes a lot of trial and error, but once you have a way that works for you, you get a feel for it, and it becomes quite simple to do.

Doesn't the inner temperature affect how fast the surface cools down - for example during long straights? Seems like the wrong direction to set high pressures for longer stints as the rubber thins out and cannot 'contain' (insert better word here) enough heat to keep the surface from turning into KY Jelly lubricant.

Quote from spankmeyer :

Doesn't the inner temperature affect how fast the surface cools down - for example during long straights? Seems like the wrong direction to set high pressures for longer stints as the rubber thins out and cannot 'contain' (insert better word here) enough heat to keep the surface from turning into KY Jelly lubricant.

You actually want the tread to cool down faster, that allows you to push more without overheating the tires...

Quote from bbman :

You actually want the tread to cool down faster, that allows you to push more without overheating the tires...

During longer races I'm struggling to keep the tyres warm, no matter how hard I keep pushing them. And overdriving usually ends up in disaster as I can barely keep the car on the road in the first place.

Then it's actually too high pressure, but it also depends on the setup... However, a bit less pressure and a bit more camber should fix that in most cases... I like just over 2 bars (29 psi) in the roadcars...

Pressure is too high, or compound too hard if thats happened.

As for the straights thing, IMO it's much better to have the camber set to give you more grip on the corners, than worry about how it effects the temp on the straight.

Tyres overheat/warm much, MUCH, more quickly when they slide than they do just running down the straight.

Quote from spankmeyer :

During longer races I'm struggling to keep the tyres warm, no matter how hard I keep pushing them. And overdriving usually ends up in disaster as I can barely keep the car on the road in the first place.

Depending on your setup (front/rear balance and camber) you can probably minimize the heat lost on straights (as always at the expense of extra tyre-wear) by tinkering with the toe settings. However you'd have to compensate some of the effects in the rest of the setup as even 0.1 toe can have quite an effect in the balance of some cars.

In long races then having the inside of the tyre 10degree more than the middle is just to much, if you want to keep good heat and get a long stint out of your tyres, you want to have as little camber as possible without the car feeling like crap.

A few deg C more on the inside of the tyre than the middle is what I generally aim for, also you have to make sure that your tyres will go beyond their optimum temp a few laps into the stint, which should last untill about mid way through your stint, then once they cool down they can be pushed harder while maintaining good heat untill the end.

The picture in the first post has way to much camber, the reason it feels just as good with the inside over heated is because when the inside is optimum temp, the middle and the outside are to cold, try reducing the camber so the middle and the inside have more similar temperatures and both will be reaching there optimum at similar times.

At the beginning (~2 years ago) I alwys tried to equalize tire temperature so that they have outside, center and inside the same temp.

After watching others (I drive races between 6 and 10 laps most of the time) I saw they heavily heat the inside, red color.

As you can see on the image at the first posting I got the inside overheated, the center slighty too cold (85°C optimum) and the outside is nearly not used.

It was much faster than equalizing temps and I alwasy wondered why since they have best grip at lower temp (seen from the overheated inside which obviously is used most of the tire).

Then I thought about still overheating the inside of the tire, while optimizing the center to the tires best grip temp for F08 on Kyoto LONG.
I managed to get the centers of all tires at +/- 3°C around best temp and the overheated insides around +/- 5°C difference max. between each other and I gained 2 seconds per Lap from it!


The things I'm not sure about are, if center and inside with perfect temp reveal with more grip while the camber has to be lower and how important the outside is on curvy tracks where (in my oppinion) it can be ignored?


@Bawbag
Is this only for long races or in common?

Quote from Lhunathwen :

At the beginning (~2 years ago) I alwys tried to equalize tire temperature so that they have outside, center and inside the same temp.

After watching others (I drive races between 6 and 10 laps most of the time) I saw they heavily heat the inside, red color.

As you can see on the image at the first posting I got the inside overheated, the center slighty too cold (85°C optimum) and the outside is nearly not used.

It was much faster than equalizing temps and I alwasy wondered why since they have best grip at lower temp (seen from the overheated inside which obviously is used most of the tire).

Then I thought about still overheating the inside of the tire, while optimizing the center to the tires best grip temp for F08 on Kyoto LONG.
I managed to get the centers of all tires at +/- 3°C around best temp and the overheated insides around +/- 5°C difference max. between each other and I gained 2 seconds per Lap from it!


The things I'm not sure about are, if center and inside with perfect temp reveal with more grip while the camber has to be lower and how important the outside is on curvy tracks where (in my oppinion) it can be ignored?


@Bawbag
Is this only for long races or in common?

In longer races it's important to get it right, as it can save you precious time if you don't have to do one more stop... For your race length, tyre wear (even temperature-induced wear) is quite negligible, so you can get away with quite a bit negative camber...

Yes tire wear doesn't really matter but a problem occured with the new patch.

R1 tires heat up much too fast for short distance races while R2 tires can't really get heated up fast enough (after being below 100 PSI pressure and still not reaching the optimum temp I tried R1 again).

So the decission for short distance races seems to be overheating (feels like aqualplaning in the end) or drivin the whole distance with too cold tires not getting the best performace out of them...

Quote from Lhunathwen :

Yes tire wear doesn't really matter but a problem occured with the new patch.

R1 tires heat up much too fast for short distance races while R2 tires can't really get heated up fast enough (after being below 100 PSI pressure and still not reaching the optimum temp I tried R1 again).

So the decission for short distance races seems to be overheating (feels like aqualplaning in the end) or drivin the whole distance with too cold tires not getting the best performace out of them...

Well.... Reality check, dude. Do you actually think that real life is optimal to the 3rd decimal at all times? What will you do when we get changing temperatures and conditions? Find a setup that does better, drive the car harder, or just cope. You might lose 0.1s, but there might be a good battle there. Isn't that better than hotlapping?

Quote from atledreier :

Well.... Reality check, dude. Do you actually think that real life is optimal to the 3rd decimal at all times? What will you do when we get changing temperatures and conditions? Find a setup that does better, drive the car harder, or just cope. You might lose 0.1s, but there might be a good battle there. Isn't that better than hotlapping?

Actually I don't do hotlaping, I just drive short distance races (Redline Racing, 6 Laps Blackwood on FOX).

I'm getting close to 6.000 Laps with FOX on BL soon, so I got a lot of practise there and I drive my own setup, none made by others.

However as said before I got temp problems since the latest patch, example:

R1 tires, 70°C opt.: center ~80, inside ~95-100°C (really high pressure)
R2 tires, 85°C opt.: center ~80, inside ~95°C (even below 100 PSI)

(both after 6 laps)

So R1 are heavily overheated while I don't get the centre of R2s hot enough, but R1 still seems to have better grip.

I got the feeling that the tires are now made for hotlaping or long distance races and the part inbetween seems to be missing?

85C optimum with 80 centre and 95 inside looks about right to me, you are probably getting a mean temp across the whole tyre pretty close to 85C.

Overheated tyres are much worse situation to be in than colder tyres, I would always err on the side of a colder tyre, maybe try driving it a bit more aggresively.

Quote from danowat :

85C optimum with 80 centre and 95 inside looks about right to me, you are probably getting a mean temp across the whole tyre pretty close to 85C.

Overheated tyres are much worse situation to be in than colder tyres, I would always err on the side of a colder tyre, maybe try driving it a bit more aggresively.

Yes I tried to be a bit more aggressive now.

I created 2 sets, one with R1 and another one with R2 and managed to get them to a quite similar state, best lap time with both on BL exactly the same: 1:09.87.

But I had to to use different wing settings 8/13 for R1 and 9/15 for R2, the speed loss on the straight returns in the turns that I can take with full throttle (I like to create settings that take fast corners with full throttle).

But I still got the feeling, that slightly overheated tires (centre), well overheated inside drive better, or at least equal to optimal temp (centre) with slightly overheated inside.

lol maybe I just don't get which parts take most of the force in turns.

In such short races, camber does matter more than temperature (if it doesn't overheat too much)... So if you can tune your tyres to have exactly 0° camber in the sharpest turn (shift + l will tell you that), and your tires don't get completely red, you'll be fine...

Quote from bbman :

In such short races, camber does matter more than temperature (if it doesn't overheat too much)... So if you can tune your tyres to have exactly 0° camber in the sharpest turn (shift + l will tell you that), and your tires don't get completely red, you'll be fine...

Good to know, I'll try that later!

Quote from bbman :

In such short races, camber does matter more than temperature (if it doesn't overheat too much)... So if you can tune your tyres to have exactly 0° camber in the sharpest turn (shift + l will tell you that), and your tires don't get completely red, you'll be fine...

Too bad that Shift+l is not possible in replays, its nearly impossible to watch the numbers while giving your best taking the turn as hard as possible.

However I saw numbers around +2, thus I'd need cambers between -3 and -4, that's a bit much, even for short distance.

Quote from danowat :

Overheated tyres are much worse situation to be in than colder tyres, I would always err on the side of a colder tyre, maybe try driving it a bit more aggresively.

Actually that varies between the compounds. From the tyre heat vs grip graphs Android made, it is clear that R1 tyres are the most sensitive to temperature, while R4 tyres aren't too fussed. Also each compound responds to under and overheating differently. R1s prefer to be cold than hot, R2s and R3s are somewhat similar between cold and hot, while R4s would rather be hot than cold. Useful stuff to know.