I believe the opposite is true, but also, we've too much grip when the temperature is cold (which is good, considering how slowly LFS changes tyre temperature).
fronts: 2nd gear, apply a little bit of brakes, stable 1/3 gas, and suddenly turn full lock. you should now understeer straight forward, adjust the course and speed by the brake.
back: flicking with handbrake in tight corners should warm em up..
Of course spinning the wheels with horsepower will work with the wheels that are connected to the engine..
+1 for rolling starts. Possibly a form of auto rolling start would be an idea where the cars are lined up - instead of at the start line 1 by 1 from the start of the final sector.
Again, my main experience is from watching Nascar. With the "warmup lap", they mainly do it to set the pitroad speed. Nascar doesn't have speedometers and during the pace lap at pitroad speed, it is for the driver to take note of the tachometer so he can gauge speed when coming into the pits. That, and it is warmup not for tires, but to get the engine going and the oil flowing and warming up. You see the cars wiggling back and forth as well. This also is not for warming up the tires, but for cleaning off any debris that has accumulated on them during the pace lap and also when coming off a caution lap.
+1 for warm up lap at the start of the Race as an Option for the Host
It can be pretty bad I would agree, but in league Races (NR03) I have yet to see it ever go wrong.
But on Public Servers it does go wrong I would say approximately about every 5th or 6th Race Start. Which can be annoying too of course.
One has to say that a start to a NASCAR Race is also totally different than standing starts.
On Standing Starts everybody must get to his right Starting Point all by himself. Finding the right point to stop on every track is not that easy.
On the other side NASCAR starts are also not as easy as one might think. There are 43 big cars, on a tracks that can have a 16 seconds laptime. Talk about a chain reaction.
I do like to join Servers who run the warm up lap, it is fun, and it adds something to the Race that is just naturally to do and realistic.
Like the Hardware Mode Options this is another thing for Server Side Options. Not all Servers should have to run the whole warm up lap, just those who wants.