Solved

Bewildered by Tire performance

All the way to the left. Which is called "backing off" I think. So theoretically no push at all.

It doesn't matter what compound - ex soft, soft or med - It is impossible for me to stay in grey area. I noticed it once in Wet that it stayed there for a while. Forget which track it was.

Are you using drivers setups or one of your own?

I always get optimal driver setup.

Well Japan last night for me at 12 degrees I was able to scoot around in push level 2 low setting and do nothing but watch times of other people. Tyres never once went into the red. I never tried the soft on push level 1 very low setting because I was doing 13 lap stints

Hard 16 lap stints
Soft 10 lap stints
Supersoft 7 lap stints

You only have 26 lap race in Japan I would be no help to you unless this:
SS-SS-SS-SS
SS-M-SS
SS-M-S
SS-S-S
S-H
M-M

Yeah, I understand the tyre economy bit. My concern is the ability or inability to keep temps in the grey area. Some tracks it creeps up slower than others - which would be natural - but it ALWAYS goes into the red, no matter what. Even on 0 push level. What seems even more peculiar to me is that this isn't the case for anyone else and that people think I have lost the plot. Which is a strong possibility of course....:-)

Jack, I think you need to record your race some how so we could see how it keeps climbing for you. Otherwise, you need to tell us the track, the temp and weather, and push level changes that you made and in what lap with some screenshots.
SS always seem to climb, especially at the hotter tracks. M and H can almost always be brought back down using lowest push. S has its issues with high temp locations too. Tires should also drop temp once below 50% if you don't increase the push level.

supersofts go red on 1/5 (Back-off Push) at nearly all tracks, Monaco is the only one off top of my head that doesn't. for example supersofts at 10c at British GP go red on 1/5 push in 2 laps and almost full red after 5 or 6 laps. Softs at that track hold temp at 1/5 push, 2/5 they go red and you cannot cool them. if you have got 'mediums' going red on 1/5 push level from the start then something is wrong, monza is the only track where something like that might happen at 35c.

Only people it doesnt affect so much is the people with slower cars or drivers they are slower they can push harder.

The more think about it the more it looks like there is a possibility to find a driver that slots in perfectly with your car design that doesnt have 20 for everything lol

So it appears as if everything is normal for me and I haven't lost then plot. In some of the other posts it sounded like managers were able to maintain temps in grey zone at lower level push no matter what.

That would be people that are not always on supersofts, rare occasions soft/medium tryes will burn up on the lowest level all comes down to track and temp. I have seen in the past Hard tyres overheating on the lowest push level in Italy, Malaysia Medium tyres only staying cool for 3 laps & Spain and Japan Hard tyres starting to cook on push level 2.

We really need more options for tyre cooling.
If all tyres where to operate on Neutral that would leave two back off settings and two push settings to cover track temps for each tyre.

Let the drivers themselves manage tyre temps and change to 3 push levels for engine modes :P