Question about tire wear

[Valkyrie]

There's something I'm curious about when it comes to tire wear in motorsports.

What causes the need for replacing tires during a race?

I assume it's due primarily because of the grip lost to excess tire heat, rather than lost tread/rubber (which I know would come eventually, but not until more miles are put on the tire).

I used to think that when people drive race cars, and change the tires, that they just threw those tires away.

But assuming you still have enough rubber left on the tire, if you let the tire heat-cycle (cool down), it's good to go again, right?

I'm also assuming that in drifting, there is quite a bit more wear in the actual rubber (as well as loss of grip due to heat, but that would be more important in a race or time trial rather than drift practice/competion, right?). That would be correct right?

Naturally the tires are more worn when drifting rather than grip driving, right? In essense, if you drift during a race (for whatever reason), you'd have to change the tires due to heat up, but would you'd have to replace them due to rubber loss more often?

*noob*

[Wickdmarz]

Re: Question about tire wear

Originally posted by Valkyrie
There's something I'm curious about when it comes to tire wear in motorsports.

What causes the need for replacing tires during a race?

I assume it's due primarily because of the grip lost to excess tire heat, rather than lost tread/rubber (which I know would come eventually, but not until more miles are put on the tire).

I used to think that when people drive race cars, and change the tires, that they just threw those tires away.

But assuming you still have enough rubber left on the tire, if you let the tire heat-cycle (cool down), it's good to go again, right?

I'm also assuming that in drifting, there is quite a bit more wear in the actual rubber (as well as loss of grip due to heat, but that would be more important in a race or time trial rather than drift practice/competion, right?). That would be correct right?

Naturally the tires are more worn when drifting rather than grip driving, right? In essense, if you drift during a race (for whatever reason), you'd have to change the tires due to heat up, but would you'd have to replace them due to rubber loss more often?

*noob*

Depending on the racing and the tires they use. They warm them up with a few laps to find proper tire pressure and footprint (Tire sitting on the ground). They remove the tires and let them cool down and then they can be used for a race. Professional racers try not to waste a potential tire, but sometimes they need to just throw them out if their not at proper proformance level.

So if a tire is used for a full out race, no it won't be used again in a race because it's not at optimal proformace. It'll probably be used for testing though.

With drifting you're are getting more tire spin and less grip in a corner. Which in turn does heat the tire up a lot faster and when ever the tire does make contact it tears or rips off thread rather than wearing it down evenly.

Read Tune to Win, by Carroll Smith he has a nice chapter about tires in there.

[GRiDRaceTech]

The reason they do pit stops to change tires is because the tires they use are only useful for a certain number of heat cycles. Once they've exceeded that number, grip tends to drop off. Since even .1 second is extremely important in racing, they then pit and change to new tires.