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Tips for those struggling with the Tyre Management tests

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Like many of you here, the struggle of trying to pass the Tyre Management R&D tests has been a pain in my early F1 2016 career. I'm playing on Legend difficulty, and while I am progressing at about where I should be when it comes to qualifying and the race, the tyre and quali sim tests have been very difficult.

However, I have managed to at least barely pass the tyre management sim test following this guide while still using the default balanced setup, which should surely help those who are better drivers than me (there would be plenty, trust me :tongue: ) or help those struggling with the test in lower difficulties.

My hot tip is: Always leave the tyre management tests until near the end of your practice session, or sessions if you do full length weekends like I do.

Tracks in F1 2016 slowly pick up grip over time, and for me at least, the slippery green track means that my times are seconds off the pace of the rest of the field early on, let alone being close to the test pass times. However, as you progress through P2 and finally P3, you can eventually lap at a competitive pace to your teammate at the very least. The AI either seem to not adhere to the grip progression, allowing them to set quick times from the outset, or have a much smaller window for improvement. So don't get disheartened by your pace early on.

The track develops grip both during the session itself, meaning lap times are faster towards the end of sessions, and also across sessions, meaning the grip at the start of P2 should be better than the end of P1 and so forth.

Here is my practice plan to work around this idea, using a balanced tyre selection.

Practice 1

I perfect the track acclimatisation first of all (I attempt it multiple times until I get purple), and then progress onto doing a tyre management sim for the other tyre recommended for that session (usually the middle compound for that race). However importantly, I ignore the delta for these tests. I just go at my own pace and complete the 10 laps I need for the 100% races. Despite failing the tests, I get good data on tyre life that I can then use in my personalised strategy for the race, plus the more laps you complete, the faster you become.

I then may do a heavy fuel load test on the used tyre from the track acclimatisation at the end of the session if I have enough time, which I also do late in P2. Heavy fuel for me generally tends to be around the fuel level that you have at the start of a race, so anywhere from 80 to 100kgs of fuel for 100% races depending on the track, less obviously for those running shorter races.

Practice 2

I first complete two tyre management sims, one on the softest and one on hardest compound available for that weekend, and once again I pay no attention to the delta. However if you are good enough, you can at least pass the test here and focus on perfecting it in P3. I  do my second heavy fuel test after this as mentioned above, usually on the softest tyre compound available. Save the last remaining tyre that is recommended for the session to do the tyre management test for P3. A lot of this session can be skipped if you're pressed for time.

Practice 3

Here is where the fun begins. First of all, I progress forward in time to about 40 mins left. I then finally attempt my tyre management test on the recommended tyre and aim to at least pass it. If you race competitively with the AI and qualify about where you should for your difficulty, you should be in the vicinity of being able to set times above your delta and at least stay in the green, or push for purple if you passed it in P2. Abuse flashbacks if you want to make life a little easier here.

After this is done, you have the final 15-20 or so minutes of P3 to complete the qualifying test. The track should have developed enough grip over time to allow you to at least pass this. This also has the advantage of preparing you for quali just before that starts, and because the track becomes even more grippy after the end of P3, you should at least be able to marginally beat your P3 time and leave in you in a good position on the grid.

EDIT: If at any point during practice it begins to rain enough to wet the track, try a tyre management test on whatever tyre is recommended for the conditions. The required delta seems to be fairly lenient in the wet and you're given plenty of time to be very progressive on the throttle. Found this out while testing it today. Still do the respective dry tyre management tests for data, but if you want to book in some R&D points with less pain on a weekend with rainy weather, this is a great way of doing it. May also work to make the quali pace test easier too, but haven't tested that yet.

__________________

For those than run shortened practice sessions or only run a single session, still use these guidelines but apply them appropriately. Ultimately always start with track acclimatisation, and always finish with your tyre test pass attempt and quali sim right at the end of your practice time. You can remove the fuel load tests if you run at anything below 50% races, and you can also eliminate one of the tyre management sims if you're confident you won't use that tyre in the race. Rain can also cause issues, but just work around it and use as much dry track running time as you can.

If you're still struggling, here are some other ideas:

Be very very gentle with your throttle and turning input, and avoid using TC if at all possible

When the track has plenty of grip, I've noticed that my delta likes to stay green if I'm very cautious with my throttle application. The temptation to thrash the tyres to keep up with the delta, my main issue when I tried the tests earlier in the weekend, was much less of a problem.

Traction Control does slow down your car in this game, even if you try be as progressive with your acceleration as you can with it on. The benefit TC has is making the car more consistent in behaviour, but the crucial few tenths you can lose using it could be the difference between a pass and a fail on a test. It is possible in this game to go without TC on both pads and wheels, so if you struggle without it, knock the difficulty down and learn. It will make you a better driver in time and you will enjoy the game much more once you do, despite the cars having their occasional frustrating moments without assists even for those who have always raced without them. Disabling other assists like auto gears and ABS will also help save time.

Constantly monitor your delta time and tyre bar and drive accordingly

If you're just aiming for a pass, the best way to ensure that is by driving to your delta. If you're half a second up on your delta but your tyres are in the red zone, ease up over the next few corners and don't push as hard as you normally would. Even being the tiniest bit less aggressive can push the bar into the green fairly easily. While I honestly believe CM should still probably alter these tests to be less punishing for tyre wear you incur at full speed on straights, it can be worked around. This also helps you become a more consistent driver across all three sectors of a track, rather than having certain strong and weak points. Those pushing for purple don't have this luxury, but if you're good enough at a track, it's not impossible.

Failing all these, remember that with the R&D points you do earn, your car will eventually begin to become faster and become much more easy to handle, especially if you start with a backmarker or lower midfield team like most are. You will eventually hit a level with upgrades that allow you to understand the car and begin to cut plenty off your lap times and make the tests easier. So don't feel compelled to drop down the difficulty just for practice to get full R&D points, people have managed to get backmarker teams to the front of the grid in one season by doing this and for me, the wrecks the illusion a little bit. Be patient and you'll enjoy your career far more, 10 seasons is plenty of time after all. :smile:

If manual shifting, shift once you see the red lights, not purple/blue

This is something I only discovered after searching for why I kept on running into engine wear issues in races. For the shift lights on the steering wheel, avoid shifting when the lights turn purple or blue if at all possible.

The red coloured lights symbolise the car's RPM redline, normally the optimum point for shifting gears in a race car. The purple coloured lights to the right of them are known as the overdrive range, which should be avoided as they not only increase engine wear, they cut the fuel flow rate to the car which effectively slows it down, especially if you let the car linger in the overdrive range. Shifting at the red lights could help gain crucial tenths when finding time in the tests, and could also help reduce wheelspin which hurts the tyre bar massively. The AI all shift at the red lights and the optional beep to tell you when to upshift also tells you to shift in the red zone, so there's plenty of evidence this is the way to go.

Downshifting effectively may also help engine wear, but is probably not too important for the tests, just focus on nailing those upshifts.

I'm not entirely sure how realistic this is, I see F1 drivers shift often at the purple point in onboard footage, but it's definitely a help to shift at the red lights in this game.

Hopefully this helps. The balancing between difficulties may still need some tweaking, but not as much as some people are claiming.

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This was really helpful thanks! I'm going to give it a go at my next race. I've been struggling with tyre management massively! 

When you have been running your car with high fuel load in practise...have you been doing it while running an R&D program, or just generic practise laps? 

Cheers

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Ian85UK said:
This was really helpful thanks! I'm going to give it a go at my next race. I've been struggling with tyre management massively! 

When you have been running your car with high fuel load in practise...have you been doing it while running an R&D program, or just generic practise laps? 

Cheers
Just standard practice laps, the tyre management sim sends you out with about 13-15 laps worth of fuel and can't be adjusted, and will override the fuel you've set in the car setup menu.

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NightFire said:
Ian85UK said:
This was really helpful thanks! I'm going to give it a go at my next race. I've been struggling with tyre management massively! 

When you have been running your car with high fuel load in practise...have you been doing it while running an R&D program, or just generic practise laps? 

Cheers
Just standard practice laps, the tyre management sim sends you out with about 13-15 laps worth of fuel and can't be adjusted, and will override the fuel you've set in the car setup menu.
Really? Thought you could change fuel level. 

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Great research. great work!
I thank you for your contribution.
And I agree with you that it is weird that the AI doesn't adhere to the grip levels during sessions.

A tip: you should know that all previous tyre wear test data (used in the personalized data for the race) gets reset if you do a new tyre wear test. So doing 3x tyre wear tests on SuperSoft will only give you tyre wear data of the LAST tyre wear test you did.

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Great research. great work!
I thank you for your contribution.
And I agree with you that it is weird that the AI doesn't adhere to the grip levels during sessions.

A tip: you should know that all previous tyre wear test data (used in the personalized data for the race) gets reset if you do a new tyre wear test. So doing 3x tyre wear tests on SuperSoft will only give you tyre wear data of the LAST tyre wear test you did.
That would make sense seeing as the recommended stops on personalised strategies usually adhere to the grip fall-off from your last test. It's probably not a bad idea that this is the way it works though, the last test would occur on a track that has a grip level closest to the grip the track would have for the race and is therefore better data. My plan only repeats the tyre test on the same compound once though, the middle tyre which I test in P1 and then in P3 for my actual attempt to pass the test. So I guess if you were really eager to save time you could skip the tyre management sims in P1 altogether.

One thing I need to look into is whether the track loses grip if there is rain during a weekend. Say if there's rain in P2, would the track slow back down to P1 levels once it dries due to the laid down rubber being washed away (as it most likely would in real F1)  or would it still improve the same way as if it was a fully dry weekend. I'm guessing from my experience so far the system isn't advanced enough to take into account weather patterns but will test it out when it next happens for me. :smile:

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Updated the OP with a new find regarding when to upshift to save time (if using manual gears) and also added in a new tip: do the tyre management tests whenever it is raining during practice. :smile:

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Have you just tried to set mixture to RICH as the session starts? The car is faster on straights and you can manage going easy on the corners...

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Just drive on rich revs its going to be pretty easy then

That does help on the straights for the delta time, but I usually set it back to standard just for the slower corners to avoid the extra wheel spin and wear you get when running rich mix.

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I've not read all of it because there is so much information there but thank you for sharing your findings with everyone NightFire. I'm sure a lot of people will find this helpful.

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great read this adjusted slightly so i do my best to pass the tyre wear test in p1 so ive got a true reading when doing it again in p3 as was noted by Bobfromfinance the data from your last tyre wear test is the one used in your pre race strategy

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the question here is, why do we have to learn this from a guy on the internet, and not from our race engeniers in the game?!

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There is also a tutorial in career about all the practice programs and safety car etc.

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