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Tyre pressures vs. temps

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Offline Wally

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Tyre pressures vs. temps
« on: May 16, 2016, 01:18:21 PM »
The question has come up before: what's more important, tyre pressure or tyre temps? So I did some experimenting in the Toyota the other day, with the usual semislicks.

First, I got the tyre pressures to optimal pressures for the conditions, and put in some times. The tyres were too cold, below optimal grip. So, reading the tooltip hints in AC that said lowering pressures may increase temps, I lowered the pressures by 5 PSI. That made the tyres a little bit hotter (about 5 degrees or so), and closer to their optimal temp range, but I was quite a bit slower. The timing delta showed me that I was losing straight-line speed. This would be due to the lower pressured tyres having more rolling resistance, which made my top speed suffer.

So then I went the other way, and over-inflated the tyres by 5 PSI. That made me faster in the straights, where rolling resistance was reduced, but slower in the corners, where grip was reduced. Overall, the lap times were about the same as with optimal pressures.

So the takeaway for me is that it might be beneficial to increase the pressures just a little from the optimal pressures, to gain you a little more straight-line speed to earn some more passing opportunities, without sacrificing any overall lap time.
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