Having your tires be shot after only a few laps is really annoying. Just because the race is short doesn’t mean the tire wear needs to be cranked up. Races the length of the open events don’t need to involve tire “strategy.” I say “strategy” in quotes because since the races are too short to take pit stops, there really is no strategy involved. 95% of the time the only viable strategy is to run softs in qualifying and mediums in the race. Therefore, the high tire wear serves no purpose other than to hurt the quality of the racing. Artificially cranking up the tire wear to try to make short races feel longer creates an unrealistic experience because increasing the tire wear rate doesn’t decrease the amount of time pit stops take meaning it’s always better to suffer with worn tires than to take a pit stop.
The race tire compounds is a neat feature for leagues that run longer races but it really has no place in the sprint races that are run in open hoppers. Open hoppers should be set to the standard rate of tire wear with race tires restricted to medium compound. This would solve a few problems:
- Gets rid of the unrealistic feeling that your tires are dead after only a handful of laps
- You can run an actual 3-lap qualifying stint without your tires being shot
- Race tires aren’t as overpowered from getting the PI-free grip from soft compound in qualifying (this is an even bigger issue in Rivals)
Having your tires degrade a realistic amount during a short race is fine. I’m not arguing that fuel/tire wear should be disabled. But having insane tire wear adds nothing to the experience and only serves as an annoyance and a balance problem. Add an endurance hopper with 30-45 minute races to give players a place to experience realistic fuel/tire strategy.