In this F1 Manager 2023 tyre wear guide I'll look at how to make your tyres last longer during races, and look at the best tyre strategies to use throughout a full race weekend in F1 Manager 2023.
F1 Manager 2023 gives you a lot of tools to help maximise your race performance. And possibly the most important of all your tools are your tyres.
Being on the right tyre, for the right amount of time, and managing those tyres so they last as long as possible is one of the most important parts of this Formula 1 management sim.
I plan to run through all areas of tyre management in F1 Manager 2023 in this guide. Hopefully, giving you the tips and tools you need to really push for those wins during career mode.
Below is our video guide talking about how to master tyre management in F1 Manager 2023. If you’d rather read this guide, continue reading below the video.
So I’m going to start right at the beginning, and that is with your tyre allocation for each race weekend. During every race, you will be given a bunch of brand new tyres which make up your weekend allowance.
This allowance includes all of the compounds from soft to hard for the dry tyres, as well as four sets of intermediate tyres and three sets of full wet tyres. These are the only tyres you have to use during a whole race weekend.
Each tyre compound in F1 Manager 2023 offers a different level of grip as well different tyre wear rates.
Softer tyres will provide you with more grip but wear faster, while harder tyres will provide less grip but last the longest. You can use these different characteristics to your advantage throughout different points of the race weekend.
The two wet tyre compounds also provide different levels of grip, durability and water clearance. These should only be used on a wet track and will not work well on a dry circuit.
I mentioned earlier your tyre allocation in F1 Manager 23. This is the term given to all of the tyres that are available to you throughout a race weekend.
These include;
You’ll notice that some of the tyres have a lock symbol next to them and cannot be chosen during practice sessions. These tyres are reserved for different sessions throughout the weekend. Below are the locked tyres and when you can use them;
You may also notice that after each practice session, you will lose access to some tyres for future sessions. This is because there is a rule where you need to hand back the most used sets of tyres after each practice session.
After each practice session, the two most worn tyres will be locked away as they are handed back. These become unusable for the rest of the weekend. This does promote a lot of running on track during practice sessions which is good.
With the specific rules regarding tyres in F1 Manager 2023 explained, I now want to move on to actually talking about tyre wear. And how to best manage your tyres throughout a race weekend.
I’ll first look at the tyre wear screen as this is a really important part of your race strategy. Getting to know this screen will serve you well during a race, and will help you make decisions regarding your tyre strategy.
This strategy screen shows you a range of information about your tyres. You will see different coloured blocks. Each of these represent a different tyre compound, and they dictate your chosen strategy.
For example, you can see here that I have a soft, medium, soft strategy along with a one stop medium and hard strategy chosen.
The blue blocks in between each tyre show the pit window. This is a window of around 5 laps where you could choose to stop earlier or later than planned depending on your tyre wear. Of course, you can always go completely off strategy and ignore this, but more on that later.
The downward slope of each coloured block shows your expected tyre wear. It’ll show you an estimate of how fast each tyre will wear.
The white line that follows this coloured block is your actual tyre wear. If it is below the coloured block it means your tyres are wearing faster than expected. If it is above, it means your tyres are wearing slower than anticipated.
Ideally, you’ll always want to aim for the white bar trending higher than the coloured bar. But in some scenarios, you may want to push harder on a set of tyres which will make it decrease faster.
You’ll also see a pale white bar that runs the entire length of the race. This indicates around 30% of tyre life remaining and is the danger zone.
You really don’t want your tyre wear to dip into this bar. If it does your drivers will start to lose a lot of grip and could even risk a puncture.
Now we can look at what actually affects tyre wear during a race. Each driver has a stat for smoothness which will make some drivers look after their tyres better than others.
But outside of this, the main contributing factor to tyre wear is how aggressively your driver is driving on track. If they are pushing harder for fast laps or for an overtake, their tyres will wear faster.
You have access to five different pace commands in F1 Manager 23 which you can give to your drivers. These are;
The two most aggressive pace commands will decrease your driver’s lap times, but will also increase their tyre wear. These modes are great for putting in some hot laps before or after a pit stop or for trying an overtake.
However, outside of these scenarios, you should try to avoid these pace commands.
The two slower pace commands, light and conserve will slow your driver down. This will in turn help to improve their tyre wear. These commands are great if you have a big gap to the car behind, or if you’re stuck in a train of cars.
If you really want to make your tyres last as long as possible, the light and conserve commands will help.
You also have access to additional fuel usage and ERS usage commands. These don’t show a direct correlation to tyre wear in the command screen, however, they do actually affect tyre wear.
When you give your driver a faster fuel or ERS command, this will improve their speed. It will also increase tyre temperatures which will affect your tyre wear.
If you watch Formula 1 each weekend, you’ve probably heard drivers and engineers talking about tyre temperature. If tyres are too hot, they will wear faster as well as provide less grip.
If they’re too cold they won’t provide enough grip causing the driver to slide around. This also can lead to increased tyre wear.
You can check your tyre temperatures on the car information screen during a race. And I’d recommend checking this periodically. Below is a quick overview of what affects tyre temperature.
| Increases tyre temperature | Decreases tyre temperature |
|---|---|
| Faster pace commands | Slower pace, fuel and ERS commands |
| Faster fuel and ERS commands | Driving in clean air |
| Following another car closely | Water on track |
So now I want to talk about some recommendations for tyre usage during a race weekend. And it all starts with practice sessions.
During the practice sessions, you really only have one goal. And that is to master your car setup. You can also increase your track acclimatisation during practice sessions. But if you spend almost the entire practice session on track, you’ll likely hit 100% track acclimatisation automatically.
Watch our video on getting 100% car setups every time in F1 Manager 23.
Generally, I follow this run plan for the practice sessions;
Remember, at the end of each practice session, you need to hand back two different sets of tyres. After the first session, after using just a single set of hard tyres, you will automatically hand back a set of hard and soft tyres.
This approach throughout all practice sessions will leave you with the following tyres for qualifying and the race;
This is ideal, as you will have enough soft tyres to complete multiple runs throughout qualifying. You then have a brand new set of hard and medium tyres for the race.
Your strategy for qualifying in F1 Manager 2023 really depends on how far through qualifying you expect to get.
If you think you’ll make it through to Q3, you may want to use fewer soft tyres during practice so you have more soft tyres for qualifying.
If you are managing a slower team and think you’ll be knocked out during Q1 or Q2, you could use more soft tyres during practice. This will leave you with more medium tyres for the race.
My ideal run plan for qualifying is;
This approach is designed to use every set of soft tyre during qualifying, and works if you have 5 sets of new soft tyres saved. This requires you to run an extra set of medium tyres during practice instead of soft tyres during practice 3.
This will require you to use a set of used soft tyres during the race if you want to use soft tyres. Although, if you don’t make it out of Q2, you will still have a brand new set of soft available during the race.
Now we get to the race, and here is where the results of your weekend so far come into play. Depending on where you qualified, and which tyres you used during practice, you’ll have some used and some new tyres ready for the race.
You’ll always have at least one brand-new set of medium and hard tyres available during every dry race. These are ideal if you want to try a one-stop strategy. You could also combine these with a set of soft tyres for a two-stop strategy.
I’m now going to run through a few different race scenarios, and how I would manage my tyre usage. These will help you plan your race depending on where you qualified.
If you qualified out of position in a fast car, or are starting towards the back of the grid, you may know you need to do a lot of overtaking.
This scenario could play out in two ways depending on the track you’re at. If you are at a track like Spa-Francorchamps where it is easier to overtake, you could opt for an aggressive strategy.
This could look like a soft, hard, soft approach. This will give you the pace to overtake the slower cars at both the start and end of the race. You may even try a three-stop strategy which is even more aggressive. This could be a soft, medium, soft, soft strategy.
This approach ensures you always have a fast car and can push throughout the race and not worry too much about tyre wear.
The other approach is reserved for tracks which are harder at overtaking such as Monaco or Hungary. In this scenario, you may want to run a longer first stint on harder tyres.
The Best F1 23 Racing WheelsThis will let you conserve your fuel and tyres while you are stuck behind slower cars. Then, once they pit and you have some clean air, you can push harder on your tyres and utilise softer tyres to jump the cars around you in the pit stops.
This could take on a hard, soft, soft, or just a hard, medium strategy.
Both of these strategies are ideal for clearing slower cars in front of you and will help you get the most out of a race after a bad qualifying session.
Generally, cars at the front end of the grid will often start on soft tyres before switching to a set of hard or medium tyres. A one-stop strategy is often the way to go if you’re towards the front of the grid. While a two-stop strategy can also work well, utilising a soft, medium, soft approach.
Tyre wear does differ from track to track so some tracks will allow a one-stop strategy, while others may require you to pit twice.
I would always recommend following other cars around you if you’re starting towards the front of the grid. This will help you stay within their DRS and not let a gap pull out between you and the cars ahead.
You can utilise undercut or overcut strategies to try and overtake cars ahead if you’re on a track where overtaking is tricky. This involves pitting a lap or two earlier or later than other cars to gain a tyre advantage.
Now I want to talk about what to do if your tyres are wearing too fast during a race. This is a very common scenario because you may be in a slower car. To keep up with other cars, you may be asking your driver to push harder, which will wear your tyres faster.
Unfortunately, unless you’re using an aggressive pit strategy, you won’t be able to push for the whole race. You will need to conserve tyres at some point to make most strategies work.
If your tyres are wearing too fast, there are a few options available to you in F1 Manager 23.
The easiest option is to conserve tyres using the pace commands. This will slow your driver down making them vulnerable to drivers behind. Try to use this command when you are stuck in traffic, or have a bigger gap to cars behind.
If you do find yourself stuck behind another driver and can’t overtake, your tyres may start to overheat. This will negatively affect tyre wear. You can instruct your driver to drive in clean air. This will ask them to either drop back from the car in front or pull out of their slipstream to cool the car. This can help reduce tyre temperatures and slow tyre wear.
The final option is to add another pit stop to your strategy. This will cost you around 20 seconds, but if it allows you to push harder on your tyres or gets you out of traffic, it may be worth it.
If you are in the good scenario of your tyres wearing slower than expected, you can use this to your advantage during a race.
You can push harder on your tyres. This will increase your driver’s speed and wear the tyres a little faster. Or you could pit later in the race. This could affect your strategy and cause you to reduce the amount of pit stops you make, which will gain you around 20 seconds.
Both of these scenarios are great and both will benefit your race. If you can conserve tyres early during a race, you will be rewarded later in the race with faster pace or a better race strategy.
As I mentioned at the beginning, there is a pale white bar runs across the bottom of the tyre wear screen. This indicates 30% tyre life remaining, and you can use this during a race.
If your tyres are about to go into this bar, I would recommend pitting. Entering this white bar will cause your driver to start to put in slower lap times due to excess tyre wear and can result in a puncture.
I often use this to dictate the lap I pit on. If my driver is doing well on tyre wear, I will extend his stint, and pit him just before they reach this white bar.
You can change your pit stop strategy by selecting the hammer and spanner icon, and then choosing pit options. This will open the pit stop strategy screen where you can choose which tyres to use next and what lap to stop on.
One last area to note is what to do during a safety car. When a safety car comes out, all drivers slow down their pace, and this is an ideal time for a pit stop.
During a regular green flag pit stop, you’ll lose 20-25 seconds depending on the track. During a safety car, you’ll lose much less time due to cars on track driving at a slower pace.
I would highly recommend choosing to pit if a safety car comes out around your pit stop window. Even if a safety car comes out 10 laps or so before you are planning to pit, it may still be worth considering. You could pit earlier and lose much less time, and adjust your race strategy to accommodate the earlier pit stop.
Hopefully, this insight into tyre life in F1 Manager 2023 has been helpful, and some of these tips will help you on your journey through career mode in this year’s F1 Manager game.
Tyre strategy and tyre wear are two of the most important areas of F1 Manager to master, so spend a little time in each screen learning to read and plan your strategy. And I’d highly recommend using the Race Replay mode to test out different race strategies.
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