F1 25 Tyre Temperature & Pressures Explained

One of the biggest limitations during a race in F1 25 are the tyres. They dictate your race strategy, along with your overall pace. This is the only part of the car that should be making contact with the track, and how much grip and performance they give you can make or break your race.

In this guide, I’m going to run through the optimal tyre temperatures in F1 25. I’ll also look at how tyre pressures affect your temperatures and grip, and ultimately, recommend the best tyre pressures to use in F1 25.

How tyre temperatures work

Starting at the very top, your tyre temperatures vary throughout a race based on a few factors. These include;

• The compound of tyre you’re using: Each compound of tyre wears differently and operates best at different temperatures.
• Your car setup: How you set up your car has a direct impact on your temperatures, with more aggressive setups heating the tyres faster.
• Tyre pressures: Within the setup, your tyre pressures have one of the biggest impacts on the temperature and can be used to increase or decrease temperature build up.
• How hard you’re pushing: As you drive closer to the limit, or push harder, you’ll put more load through the tyres and increase the temperature build up.
• Following other cars closely: If you are following another car closely, you aren’t getting cool fresh air on your tyres. Instead, the warm air from the rear of the car in front will heat your tyres faster.

Do you want hot or cold tyres?

With all of those factors considered, ultimately, do you want hot or cold tyres? Well, every tyre compound has its own best operating window, or sweet spot. Ensuring the tyres are within this operating window will get the maximum performance from the tyre, and it’ll wear at a slower rate.

• If your tyres are too cold: Tyres that are cold won’t deliver enough grip. This will cause your car to understeer on and through corners, and slide around mid to late corner. This sliding can spike tyre temperatures, and will also cause excess tyre wear as the tyres are sliding about on the track surface.
• If your tyres are too hot: Tyres that are too hot suffer from similar characteristics to cold tyres. The grip starts to fall away and your car begins to slide, which further heats the tyres, again leading to excess tyre wear.

Reading tyre temperature graph mid race

It’s all well and good knowing about tyre temperatures, but how do you check them? On track, you can check your tyre temperatures at any point during a race. The MFD screen can be enabled by pressing the MFD button on your controller or steering wheel.

This will show the tyre temperatures, giving you three temperature readouts for each corner of the car. If you’re racing using a steering wheel with a screen, like the Sim-Lab Mercedes-AMG F1 wheel that I’m currently using, you may also be able to see the tyre temperature data on your wheel.

How to read the tyre temperature MFD panel

You’ll see three different temperature sensors for each wheel. These represent the tyre surface, tyre core, and the brake temperatures. The bottom number is the brake temps. Hotter brakes can result in hotter tyres, and you’ll want them to be in the right performance window, just like the tyres, typically indicated by a green brake icon.

The top number is the tyre core. This is the inside of the tyre, and its the readout that you’ll want to pay most attention to. This number is the most stable of the three as the core temperature doesn’t fluctuate quickly. Instead, it builds or falls over time.

The middle number represents the tyre surface. You’ll see this number changing quickly as you brake and corner in F1 25. Spinning your wheels or pushing the tyres hard mid corner will cause the surface temperatures to spike, while driving on a straight will cause them to cool. You don’t want to spike the surface temperatures too high, otherwise this will lead to overheating and loss of grip.

What is the optimum tyre temperature in F1 25?

In F1 25, we have six different dry tyre compounds. Each of these compounds differs in its ideal temperature window, with the softer tyres (C5 and C6) working at lower temperatures compared to the harder tyres. Wet weather tyres also have a lower optimum working window.

Below are the optimal tyre temperatures in F1 25 for each compound, with the tyres getting softer the higher number you go in the compound name.

What temperature should race tyres be?

During a race, you should always aim to have the tyres in the optimum window above. The closer to the middle value you get, the more performance you’ll get from the tyre, and the slower they’ll wear.

Should the tyres be hotter for qualifying?

During qualifying, tyre management is a bit different. Throughout the lap you’ll be pushing at 100%, meaning your tyres will be getting hotter and hotter throughout a lap. Normally, qualifying laps are done using the softest tyre compound, also meaning they’ll heat up fastest.

This leads to two scenarios, the first, you start with your tyres slightly cooler than optimum. Then, as the lap progresses, the tyres heat, and come into the perfect temperature window for the majority of the lap.

Alternatively, you can start the lap with the tyres in the perfect window. However, towards the end of the lap, your tyres may start to overheat, losing you a little time through the final sector.

Typically, I like to start with the temperatures just below optimum at the start of the lap. That means, if the soft tyre for a race is the C4 compound with an ideal temperature of 85°C, I’ll look to start the lap with the tyre temperatures at around 80°C. This gives a little room for the temperatures to increase throughout the lap, before they start to drop off again.

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How does tyre temperature affect grip

A few times throughout this guide I’ve mentioned that hot or cold tyres reduces grip and affects wear, but why? It’s all about how the tyre performs at different temps.

If your tyres are too cold or hot, grip levels will fall away and the tyre rubber simply isn’t performing at optimum. This lack of grip will cause your car to slide more on track and not perform as well. This extra sliding will then cause your tyres to wear faster as the surface of the tyre is being dragged across the track surface.

Below is an example using the C3 tyre which is the medium of the three compounds available.

How tyre pressures affect temperature, performance and wear

I mentioned that one of the biggest things that affects your tyre performance and temperature gain is your pressure setup. This is the one area of your car setup that has a direct correlation to tyre performance. Other areas of your setup such as your suspension and aero will also affect tyre temps and wear.

Higher tyre pressures

Higher tyre pressures inflate the tyres more. This will have a few affects. The first is that the tyre will balloon more, meaning less of the tyre surface is touching the track.

• This will result in higher top speeds as there is less friction between tyre and track.
• It also results in less overall grip and traction due to the smaller contact patch.
• The result of less friction means your car will feel lighter and more responsive.
• Finally, higher pressures will cause your tyres to run cooler.

Lower tyre pressures

If you do the opposite and lower your tyre pressures, you’ll get a lot of opposite affects happening due to the tyres being more deflated.

• Your friction and drag increases as more of the tyre is touching the track surface.
• This will lead to slower response when you turn the wheel, and a slightly more sluggish feel.
• You’ll get better traction and mechanical grip as more of the tyre rubber is touching the track.
• Due to the larger contact patch, the tyres will heat up quicker.

What are the best tyre pressures to use in F1 25

So what are the best tyre pressures to use in F1 25? In previous games, running all tyres at maximum was the best option as it helped to lower the overall temperature build up. In F1 25, this trend does continue, and the tyres run just as hot as in last years game, if not a touch hotter.

For many tracks, I’d recommend maximum tyre pressures for race conditions. This will lower temperature build up as much as possible, making the tyres last for a longer stint.

This recommendation does change for qualifying though. Across a single lap, tyre wear isn’t something that you should think about. Instead, a qualifying lap is all about performance. Lower tyre pressures grant more mechanical grip and traction, and can actually result in faster single lap time.

You can change the tyre pressures between qualifying and the race under Parc Ferme rules. This means, I would often lower the tyre pressures for quali runs, specifically the rear pressures. Then increase them back up for the race.

Maximum tyres pressures aren’t always right

While I recommend max tyres pressures for a good majority of races, it isn’t always the right approach. In F1 25, the trend is for the rear tyres to heat up faster than the fronts. To counter this, I often recommend setting the front pressures lower than the rears. This will bring the tyre temperatures closer at both front and rear during a race.

Another scenario are slow tracks such as Monaco. Extremely slow circuits don’t put as much load through the tyres, meaning temperatures will be lower than at faster tracks such as spain. At these circuits, we can set the pressures lower, resulting in better traction, which can be key when accelerating from slow speeds.

Using the right car setup

Tyre pressures are a part of your overall car setup, and other parts of your setup can affect tyre wear and temperature build up as well. For example, running more netural camber will bring more of the tyre into contact with the track, adding extra drag. And increasing your toe in or out will also add drag as the tyre scrubs across the sruface.

Your on throttle differential can affect how easily your rear wheels spin, while the suspension setup can have a big overall impact to car balance, and how hard the tyres are worked.

F1 25 Pro Car Setups

Choosing the right car setup in F1 25 is crucial. A well-tuned setup not only makes the car easier to drive but also helps unlock more performance on each track. Using a setup that is stable will help make driving without traction control that little bit easier.

For a quick and effective solution, try our free F1 25 car setups, available for every track. These provide a stable and improved alternative to the game’s default setups.

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Article written by Rich

Founder of SimRacingSetups.com

Rich is the founder, F1 car setup creator and content writer for SimRacingSetups. With over a decade of experience as a graphic designer, marketing director, competitive sim racer and avid motorsport fan, Rich founded SimRacingSetup.com to share his passion and knowledge of sim racing and Formula 1 with other sim racers. Regularly writes for sim racing website SimRaceReviews.com

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