F1 2010 The performance of slicks in the wet

[F1 2011 Rocks!]

Or on a merely damp track. They seem completely wrong to me - they go from OK grip, so you can still drive the car round the track albeit carefully, to no grip at all, so you feel as though you're aquaplaning. This would not be a problem on a soaking wet track, but on a damp track? Surely this isn't accurate. Can the tyre grip modders do anything about this, it cost me big time last night.

Thoughts? Am I right, or am I just rubbish at driving in the wet on slicks?

 

[glight]

Happens to me all the time. I don't drive for more than 4-5 laps (or 1 lap of spa) when it starts to rain. Pit to intermediates when you first notice you're getting water drops on the camera and then you should be fine. Yes you will pit before the Ai but at least you wont get a DNF and you will beat the rush to the pits and so avoid getting held by the pit stop bug.

I don't think this behavior of the slick tyres is strange. They have zero tread so they cannot move any water away from the contact patch. This means that the tyre gets wet very fast and once it is wet then it is ruined: you will have next to no grip and will have to sled around the track nursing it to the pits for intermediates.

 

[F1 2011 Rocks!]

OK, thanks for the tip.

 

[Kyle Dunning]

Ok let me explain in this super detail for you, because to be honest i think glight has given the wrong information here, no offense

The Intermediate tyre on F1 2010 is completely useless! Why do you ask? Here comes the super detail from me...

First of all the game seems to have made the Intermediates to be used in very light rain, however when the game begins to give you rain, it seems the Dry tyres work exactly the same in the light rain, therefore it is completely detrimental to pit in for Inters.

When the track becomes wet, to the point that the car is splashing out water from all sides, and the dry tyres begin to drop off in performance, at this point in time, pitting for the Inters is completely useless, as it is now too wet.

What Codemasters did... was they made the Dry too grippy in light rain, the transition period from Dry, to Light Rain, to Moderate Rain and ending with Heavy Wet Rain can happen in a very short time, and from my experience i have never seen it where the track goes from Dry > Light Rain, and then back to Dry again, it will always proceed to at least Moderate Rain, where the Intermediates become useless.

So my advice to you is, completely ignore the Intermediate tyre, even if it puts you on Inters at the start of a session, change to Wets immediately, the Wet tyres are very grippy in Moderate rain, whereas the Inters are just completely useless, if your in Heavy wet conditions, and you find the car is unstable, change to Cruise Map setting for a while, until the weather eases off a little bit and the tyres begin to grip the track more.

Codemasters failed with the Intermediates in this game, i can tell you from experience racing awesome drivers in my championship, any time they have gone to pit for Inters they have come back in 3 laps later at the most, when they realized just how much time they were losing.

 

[Dan Holland]

Yeah if anything I think the dry tires are too good in light rain. There is a window where inters are the best choice, but it is so limited it's basically pointless because any small time advantage gained is blown out of the window from the time lost to pit. The only time I'd use inters is at the very start or end of a race when I want to hedge my bet in changing weather conditions on a shorter race.

 

[David O'Reilly]

Agree with Kyle.
The wet tyre will go at almost dry tyre pace no probs so inters are redundant. They will go to lunch earlier of course on a dryer track.

One moe point in reference to F 2010 Rocks original post: I believe that the behaviour of the dry tyre accurately models real life. This is due to the fact that in addition to Kyles point re tread and water dispersal is the issue of temperature.
Once the optimal temp is lost it results in massive reduction in traction/grip just when you need it most AND you have no tread its a double whammy and you go in say two corners from Ok to NO WAY. I think Brundle refers to it as the dry tyre falling off a cliff as Temp and water dispersal (none) both kick in. The Wet tyre has a lower optimal operating temperature (softer).
So if its raining the dry tire is a gamble.
For the little geek in all of us the optimal temp ranges appear below: Go on have a look you know you want to.

Dry-Prime:114 deg C
Dry-Option: 112 deg C
Inter:109 deg C
Wet:105 deg C
(source Racer Alex "Advanced F1 Setup Guide")

 

[Element515]

if anything i think the dry tires are too good in the wet, i've had it where you can start to see watersplashing and the track is clearly wet, rain starting to hit the visor, but here i am on dry tires almost unaffected. I agree that inters are just useless, the AI puts you on them when they are useless and your competition will be killing you.

 

[F1 2011 Rocks!]

Ok let me explain in this super detail for you, because to be honest i think glight has given the wrong information here, no offense

The Intermediate tyre on F1 2010 is completely useless! Why do you ask? Here comes the super detail from me...

First of all the game seems to have made the Intermediates to be used in very light rain, however when the game begins to give you rain, it seems the Dry tyres work exactly the same in the light rain, therefore it is completely detrimental to pit in for Inters.

When the track becomes wet, to the point that the car is splashing out water from all sides, and the dry tyres begin to drop off in performance, at this point in time, pitting for the Inters is completely useless, as it is now too wet.

What Codemasters did... was they made the Dry too grippy in light rain, the transition period from Dry, to Light Rain, to Moderate Rain and ending with Heavy Wet Rain can happen in a very short time, and from my experience i have never seen it where the track goes from Dry > Light Rain, and then back to Dry again, it will always proceed to at least Moderate Rain, where the Intermediates become useless.

So my advice to you is, completely ignore the Intermediate tyre, even if it puts you on Inters at the start of a session, change to Wets immediately, the Wet tyres are very grippy in Moderate rain, whereas the Inters are just completely useless, if your in Heavy wet conditions, and you find the car is unstable, change to Cruise Map setting for a while, until the weather eases off a little bit and the tyres begin to grip the track more.

Codemasters failed with the Intermediates in this game, i can tell you from experience racing awesome drivers in my championship, any time they have gone to pit for Inters they have come back in 3 laps later at the most, when they realized just how much time they were losing.

OK - will do. See, that's what I was driving at as well -- the transition period from condition to condition happens too suddenly - I once had the same problem when driving on Intermediates - one lap they were fine, the next I was skating into the wall. So I'll use the Wets from now on and let's hope Codies do more work on the tyres in the next edition.