[Wally]

Yep, 60% damage like race night.

[marty]

The grip weirdness doesnt actually effect the starts it just makes your tyres much worse because of the start. Try with tyre blankets and a slow out lap with no excess load on your tyres, any compound. Then try no blankets and a race start then compare your lap times and car balance/traction out of corners.

It took a while to figure out why some races the car felt so different with tyre wear at the same levels, same track and tyre temps. Then you open up the physics app and see your rears are grained and when you watch the app as you start you see clearly what the issue is. Regular driving on cold tyres may get a grain number of 1 or 2 points after 5 laps or so but the starts you can easily get 40 on the rears. This makes tyres feel like about 95% grip as GB says. The one race I really noticed it is when racing guy and ed and I had a very good start but then my rears were shot by the exit of t1 so the start was in fact crap. 

[Wally]

It's an interesting discussion on the AC forums, about how realistic this level of graining is. The fact that the graining doesn't go down certainly sounds like a bug.

[Guybrush Threepwood]

As far as I'm aware, and I could be wrong, but graining usually occurs more so as a result of lateral forces on a cold tyre rather than spinning them off the start.

[Wally]

Lots of detail here: http://insideracingtechnology.com/tirebkexerpt3.htm

”A requirement for the development of an abrasion pattern is "unidirectional sliding." Sliding in random directions does not produce these patterns.”

”Unfortunately, once a graining pattern is worn into the surface of a tire it's difficult to wear the pattern away. The ridges tend to perpetuate as wear continues. Even worse, since the tread is not evenly loaded after it has been grained, the tire loses grip. It's just another way for a driver to mess up. That's why experienced drivers are so valuable.”

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Lots of detail here: http://insideracingtechnology.com/tirebkexerpt3.htm

”A requirement for the development of an abrasion pattern is "unidirectional sliding." Sliding in random directions does not produce these patterns.”

”Unfortunately, once a graining pattern is worn into the surface of a tire it's difficult to wear the pattern away. The ridges tend to perpetuate as wear continues. Even worse, since the tread is not evenly loaded after it has been grained, the tire loses grip. It's just another way for a driver to mess up. That's why experienced drivers are so valuable.”

"Unidirectional sliding" vs. "random directions" doesn't make sense to me.  You either slide in one direction or the other???  Is spinning the wheels classified as sliding?  If spinning the wheels alone caused gaining I gather you would see a gaining pattern going across the tyre?

[Wally]

Spinning the wheels would be the same as sliding. Either way, it results in abrasion between the road surface and the tyre. I guess he's saying by unidirectional, that it's a severe slide, such as spinning wheels or a long lateral slide, rather than general cornering giving abrasion in a number of different directions and not leading to a graining pattern.

Some other commentary I read calls into doubt the accuracy of that website. Nothing to back up their claims of doubtfulness, of course. As always with tyres... the truth is out there somewhere...

[Wally]

I'll enable tyre blankets (which pre-warm the tyres) on the server for the races, but I'm not sure if you still have to enable them yourself in your offline assists as well. Also, it may be that you only get the tyre blankets taking effect after you return and leave from the pits, but in the race session they should work.

[Bird]

IMO:
If the tyres are locked up, the surface will get a lot of "sliding" in one spot, in one direction.  Spinning tyres will get a lot of that, too, longitudinally.  I think these classify as unidirectional sliding.
If you're cornering and the tyres spin AND slide, the tyre surface will get somewhat different sliding direction each time around.
But I'm just musing around


...

Ello guys. I'm sort of back. I'm wondering if you have a spot at the end of tonight's grid, I might come and wreak some havoc.  I haven't driven the car since it came out, and it wasn't easy to tame that much I remember

[Wally]

IMO:
If the tyres are locked up, the surface will get a lot of "sliding" in one spot, in one direction.  Spinning tyres will get a lot of that, too, longitudinally.  I think these classify as unidirectional sliding.
If you're cornering and the tyres spin AND slide, the tyre surface will get somewhat different sliding direction each time around.
But I'm just musing around


...

Ello guys. I'm sort of back. I'm wondering if you have a spot at the end of tonight's grid, I might come and wreak some havoc.  I haven't driven the car since it came out, and it wasn't easy to tame that much I remember

Sure, you're in! It's an interesting car.

[StanDaam]

It's an interesting car.

It's a turbo Monster!!

[Bacchulum]

It's a pussy-cat.

A big, man-eating, lion of a pussy-cat.

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Taking this thing with qualifying tyres and 100 boost around piratella is what dreams are made of.

[marty]

Just tried it with tyre blankets and the graining issue is completly gone with them when pulling out of the pits, with them off you had to go so slow exiting pits just to avoid graining. Race start should also be fine with the tyre blankets on, it still doesnt help the fact I am slow in the car but will see how many kill engines and gearboxes in the race. 

[Wally]

Do you know if you have to enable tyre blankets in your own offline settings for them to work on the server?