I've been without a wheel since just before Christmas, so I'm way behind learning the rain options. The standard hud now includes a line of text that describes if it's raining and how wet the track is. As my session moved past the half hour mark, the rain had stopped and the track was drying. I was watching the percentages decrease but really didin't know when the crossover to dry tires occurs. Before I just went by the visual when the drying racing line expanded just a-bit from it's first appearance. As I said, I haven't done much rain driving yet so ... don't worry about being too simplistic. thanks dh
TBH, I have only ever based my decision on risk. If I am behind, and I think I can cope on dry, I come in earlier than anyone else. If close to the front, it is a bit trickier. I would have thought that you were experienced enough to do this by feel, however I get other drivers could benefit from how this thread turns out
Laptime is usually the indicator that will tell you when you are ready to change back to slicks. When track conditions provide the same laptime for dry and why compound it is called cross-over. In my experience crossover occurs when laptimes are 8-10 % slower than dry times. However it is easier and more reliable to test your car/track combination. It is a very simple thing to try in rF2 where you can reproduce track condition by loading real road. I would suggest to learn to yield your own conclusions. You learn the most when doing it. When you get used to ask everything you don't learn in the same way since your brain doesn't process the same own and others experiences.
In rF2 the outside line dries very slowly compared to the main racing line, at least the last time I did a wet race. This means you are forced to stay on wets or intermediates for quite a long while after the main line has dried unless you want to risk spinning from putting the tire 1 cm on the wet path. So my advice would be to wait until the main dry line is wide enough that you don't risk putting a wheel outside it, which can be 5-10 laps after the first dry path forms.
Rain %, when should I come in for Dry's? That is the million dollar question, as has been suggested above it all comes down to personal feel, experience (of the car & track as well as general) and what the opposition drivers do (Real Online Humans not AI I would suggest). It's one of those calls I love watching in real life, partly the Race Engineer watching the other drivers lap times and partly the driver knowing when it's "right" to switch to slicks, but ultimately it falls to the driver I think. I'm not sure how the Rain % works in RF2, if it's raining hard at one end of the track but dry in another then that throws a whole additional thought process into the mix. It may be 10% dry but one corner may still be a lot wetter than the rest of the track so that's where the decision at the time is purely down to you. For example I've stood at Paddock Hill Bend (Brands Hatch) in lovely sunshine whilst the back end of the circuit in the woods has sat under a storm and drivers didn't know what to do...English Weather! This is one area I am looking forward to trying for myself but until the Rain gets a performance boost then it's something I'll have to keep waiting for, I just want to relive last years Bathurst 1000
And apart from all that, it's mod dependent as each set of tyres has its own wet vs damp vs dry grip change, meaning the crossover can change from mod to mod.
