How To Improve Tyre Wear in F1 22

Limiting the amount of wear that you get on your tyres is almost as important as being a consistently fast driver in F1 22. Managing your tyre wear will help to open up different race strategies giving you more options during a race to beat the competition.

However, tyre wear isn’t an easy part of F1 22 to master. It involves finding the right car setup as well as consciously managing your driving style to get the most life out of your tyres. This guide will run through the best tips to help limit your tyre wear in F1 22.

Find the perfect car setup

Managing your tyre wear and getting better tyre life all starts with your car setup. It is the single biggest element that you can change to improve your tyre life.

Creating the quickest car setup to get you on pole position is all well and good. But if you don’t factor in tyre wear, you may end up pitting more than other cars around you. Finding the right balance between speed and tyre wear is crucial for the best race setup.

View our complete guide to F1 22 car setups

Monitor your tyre temperatures

One of the best indicators of how well your tyres will wear during the race is by monitoring your tyre temperatures. You can do this by navigating to the temperature panel in your MFD whilst driving.

You should be checking to see how hot your tyres get. If they get too hot on a regular basis, you will encounter excess tyre wear.

The ideal tyre temperature in F1 22 is between 90-100°C. If your temperatures exceed 100°C you should look to make setup adjustments to bring down the overall temperatures.

Parts of your car setup that can affect tyre wear

There are different parts of your car setup that can affect your tyre temperature and tyre wear. Knowing which parts these are will help you adjust your car setup to manage tyres that are getting too hot.

• Camber – This affects how much of your tyre is in contact with the road. Higher values (further left on the setup slider) will negatively affect your tyre wear. This will mean less of your tyre is touching the road causing tyres to wear unevenly.
• Toe – Your toe is the angle that your wheels are pointing away from your car when looking from above. Increasing the toe will increase tyre temperature and wear as your tyres will be being dragged across the surface more. Decreasing toe will straighten your wheels, giving you more top speed and less tyre wear.
• Suspension – A stiffer suspension and anti-roll bar setup will increase tyre wear.
• Differential – Your on-throttle differential setup will affect how closely both your rear wheels spin at the same speed. Higher values are likely to cause more oversteer and wheelspin which will increase tyre wear.
• Tyre pressures – Increased tyre pressures will put more force through your tyres which will increase overall temperature.

Tyre strategy

Your tyre strategy during the race will be heavily dictated by the practice program if you undertook it during any of the three practice programs. If you performed well in the tyre wear practice program, you will have many more options on tyre strategy.

These include performing a single pit stop as opposed to two stops during a race. This can save you around 20-30 seconds depending on the track you’re racing at. To accommodate this style of race strategy, you may need to make some concessions with your strategy or driving style.

Slightly tweaking your car setup to accommodate a better race strategy will almost always allow you to run a faster race. Especially when compared to having to pit an additional time to account for excessive tyre wear.

Limit wheelspin

Other than car setup, one of the key areas where you can improve tyre wear is to limit wheelspin. Reducing the amount of oversteer you encounter around certain corners in F1 22 and limiting wheel spin on corner exits will help keep tyre temperatures down.

Tracks which are rear limited (meaning your rear tyres will wear before your front) are particularly tricky on tyre wear. These styles of circuits are much harder on your rear tyres due to them generally having more corners which are prone to produce wheel spin.

To limit wheel spin, you can once again look at your car setup. Elements such as your on-throttle differential, rear suspension stiffness and rear aerodynamics can all help reduce wheel spin.

You can also try to regulate the amount of throttle you apply more carefully. The better you manage your throttle application when accelerating out of corners, the less your tyres will spin. And the less wheel spin you encounter, the lower your tyre temperatures and in turn tyre wear will be.

For more information on limiting wheelspin, read our F1 22 traction control guide. That guide features a lot of helpful information about maximising your traction and preventing wheelspin.

Lower your on-throttle differential

As mentioned, your on-throttle differential is one of the key areas that you can adjust to help stop your wheels from spinning. Lowering your on-throttle differential setup will allow you to apply more throttle out of corners before you encounter wheel spin.

This makes managing your traction much easier around tricky circuits or in wet weather conditions. This is even more important in F1 22, where the cars have less rear downforce. In this year’s game, you are more likely to oversteer than in the past few games.

Don’t lock your wheels under braking

Another issue that can cause excessive tyre wear in F1 22 is when you lock your wheels under braking. Locked wheels happen when your tyres can’t cope with the amount of braking force you are putting through them.

This can be caused by braking too hard for too long, or applying too much steering input while braking. A locked wheel will drag the tyre across the track surface. This creates extra heat to be generated and will wear the tyre directly due to the surface being dragged across the track.

Does F1 22 have flat spots?

While locking up a wheel would normally cause a flat spot to appear. This feature isn’t in F1 22. No matter how hard you lock a wheel in F1 22, you won’t flat spot your tyre. Although lockups do still negatively affect tyre wear, so are still best to be avoided!

How to avoid locking a wheel in F1 22?

As I mentioned, locked wheels are usually a result of too much braking force being applied for too long or at low speeds. Or due to too much steering input being applied while braking.

The first issue of applying too much brake pressure for too long generally refers to the driver braking too hard at slow speeds. The braking force you can apply is much higher at high speeds compared to low speeds.

For example. When you are travelling at 100mph, you don’t need the same amounts of braking force to slow the car as you would when travelling at 180mph. If you apply the same braking force that you would normally use at 180mph when you are only travelling at 100mph there is a strong possibility you’ll lock a wheel.

So if you apply 100% brake pressure when travelling at top speed, as you start to slow down, you will need to reduce the brake pressure. You can start to release the brake pedal as you slow and still continue to slow the car efficiently.

Essentially, your tyres can only give a certain amount of grip. Once this grip level is exceeded, your tyre can lose traction or lock up.

When you brake in a straight line, all of your tyre’s grip potential is being used to slow the car down. If you start to turn the steering wheel at the same time, some of the grip is then being used to turn the car. This can cause the tyre’s maximum grip to be reached and exceeded.

Instead, the correct way to brake and turn is to reduce the amount of brake input as you increase your steering input. This is called trail braking and will help balance the steering and braking in a way which doesn’t cause you to exceed your tyre’s maximum grip levels.

Read our guide on how to drive F1 22 without ABS. There is a lot of helpful information about preventing lockups and being able to brake more consistently.

Driving beyond the limit

Both wheel spin and wheel lock-ups are examples of overdriving the car. If you push too hard or drive beyond the limits of grip that your tyres can offer, not only will you cause extra stress on your tyres as you slide across the track. But you will also run the risk of losing control of your car.

During a race in particular, you have to be mindful to stay within the limit of the car. Pushing too hard will work the tyres more, and increase the rate at which they wear.

You will often hear TV commentators talk about drivers preserving their tyres. This refers to the drivers intentionally driving slower than their maximum to help increase tyre life.

The same approach applies to F1 22 during longer races. You should ensure that you drive consistent laps rather than pushing for the entirety of the race.

There are scenarios during a race where it is beneficial to push, such as in and out laps and when you’re trying to overtake other cars. However, if you are in the middle of the pack with cars around you, try to conserve some tyre life by driving within the limit.

Adjust your driving style

You can also look to adjust your driving style to improve tyre life. If you watch Formula 1, you’ll often hear commentators talking about drivers such as Sergio Perez or Jenson Button having an incredibly smooth driving style.

Both of these drivers, as well as drivers such as Fernando Alonso are fantastic at preserving their tyres and making them last longer than others around them. This is because of their smooth driving style.

The smoother you can be with your inputs, the less strain you’ll put on your tyres. This applies to all aspects of driving, from steering to accelerating and braking. Try to ensure all of your inputs are smooth.

On the flip side, if you move the steering wheel erratically, or are aggressive with the throttle pedal, you will put extra stress on your tyres. This will increase the overall temperature which increases wear.

View the best racing wheels for F1 22

Overview

Hopefully, these F1 22 tips for improving tyre wear and making tyres last longer will help you preserve your tyres. Following these tips from the adjusted car setup to the smooth driving style will let you get the most out of your tyres.

This should give you an advantage during the race allowing you to adjust your race strategy to your advantage.

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Article written by Mjolnir

Mjolnir is one of the main setup creators and content writers for SimRacingSetups. He has had years of experience in sim racing, both competitively and casually. After a decade of sim racing experience, he co-founded SimRacingSetup.com to share his passion and knowledge of sim racing and Formula 1 with other sim racers. View all articles written by Mjolnir