Solved

Hard Tires more faster than SS or S tires!!! OMG

Biggest lot of the tracks are Medium to High wear, tracks that should be Medium tyres, the Hard tyres are used. Simply because they are equal speed to Medium and last a little longer and a higher push level for an extra 5-6laps

In general the softer tyres are faster when they're in optimum temps and above 50% tyre life; Hards become definitely better in terms of pace when the soft runners have difficulties pushing and dealing with temps. Because wear comes into play in the case of soft tyres, it is another factor determining the optimum stint length needed to take full advantage of them; they usually pull a gap to the Hards or catch up with them when they're above 50% life, before falling off or usually having to pit earlier.

In the 2 car 50% league I'm in, even 2 stops on the 2 softest compound can beat 1 and 2 stoppers with at least one Hard stint on a handful of tracks, especially in colder weather. Even for 1 stoppers, starting on Softs and then going on Hards as opposed to all Hards is more competitive on certain tracks due to initial track position and initial pace. Of course the Hard stint strategies, 1 or 2 stops, are the outright best in more or less half the tracks, but at least there's some variety depending on the track & conditions instead of total domination.

I believe the durability is balanced pretty well atm, even if some things might need tweaking if need be. One thing that can be improved is the pace and wear of Mediums relative to Hards, but I recognize that it will be difficult to find the right formula especially since it has to be balanced with the Supers and Softs too. At least Mediums benefit from the softer tyres (even Mediums compared to Hards) starting further up the grid.

As for fuel weight, my thought is Hard stints which usually require more fuel have that to balance them especially in the early parts of their stint and the start of the race. If the influence of fuel weight was lessened, one thing I worry is whether the meta will go back to a "softs obsession" especially a supers obsession that was present in the old iGP right before the new one was launched. I agree that Hards have very competitive performance, especially in relation to Mediums, but looking at its pace relative to softs which are run in optimum temps and above 50% tyre life, my main concern is more the prevalence of Hards in all sorts of conditions rather than one tyre/tyre strat dominating all the tracks. Still, in my view, we right now have all sorts of strategies available to be competitive. Some tracks may have less choice of competitive strats, but others can have 2-5 or more strats duking it out in close competition. It's just Hards are a bit prevalent in usage in all sorts of conditions atm.

I think medium can be very good for first stint in full league with 30-32 cars and teams aproximately equal in strenght. Lets say the track fastest tyre set (on an empty track) is hard-hard-hard-hard. So some team go for it and start with hard tyres. But other teams start with medium tyres to fight for grid advantage (race set medium-hard-hard-hard). The team starting with the "best" hard tyres under this circumstances will probably start around 25th - 30th. I highly doubt it will be able to finish in the points. I dont know if such races are actually happening in the game but the possibility is there.

It's why in more competitive/crowded leagues there are numerous tracks where you don't go all Hards, but start on a softer tyre, as strats also highly depend on what other managers in the league do. Even if all 16 teams in a 2 car team are active, if most of them start on Hards, then all Hards will be a more competitive strategy as they start further up the field. If most start on Supers or Softs, with some starting on Mediums which does happen, then those who start on Hards will have a more difficult time moving up the field. They can still make it into the points or even the podium on most tracks, taking advantage of the time the softer tyres are worn and their own overcut, but a win would be difficult in those circumstances.

Was reading this thread again and stumbled upon your post whereby you said that Hards should not work in Aus. I took a look at the time of my last race in Aus and compared it to the winner in your league (raced 4 days apart) and although the winner in your league was 31 seconds quicker than my driver, considering his stats are far superior than my driver would the 31 second difference be attributed to the drivers stats or do you think that if I had used the same strategy as him that the race time would have been much closer?

My S-H-H-H vs Your league SS-S-S-S-S 1:22.41.012 vs 1:22.09.879 (Difference 31.133)

The driver in your league is 20 Talent and all stats are 20, where as my driver is 20 Talent but stats are around 13 and 10 mentals. Also my driver's stats were a few points lower than what they are now.

My Driver
https://igpmanager.com/app/d=driver&id=2575411

Driver in your league
https://igpmanager.com/app/d=driver&id=757031

My Race
https://igpmanager.com/app/d=result&id=7481201&tab=race
Your Race
https://igpmanager.com/app/d=result&id=7736405&tab=race

Only talent really matters atm, followed by stamina and weight. So if your drivers are the same Talent you should be able to compare relative performance. As proof that only Talent really matters (also a bit of boasting :p), this is the driver of my level 15 1 car team, whose performance (or mine :p) against other top 1 car managers you can see in the league standings so far: https://igpmanager.com/app/d=driver&id=1934889

30 seconds is quite a big difference but it also depends on the temperatures. Note that I made my point "Hards should not work in Aus" when it was not yet summer in Australia. I also hadn't participated in that 1 car league that I mentioned above where 1 stop S/H is a winning strat (even though the winning time is slower than that of this team's 2 car 50% league. But in IGP Champions you need to get the DRS trains without teamwork so mirroring strats of others helps), so clearly I've learned something since! Also, it's summer in the southern hemisphere now and Aus reaches 30C at some points of the day, where Hards would be even more competitive there. However, a hotter track often means longer race times, but there are cases where the pace of one league in a certain race is suddenly gimped by the game, so check the qualifying times to be sure as well.

Also note in the Aus race you highlighted, there is also another competitive strat there, 6 stops ss, that only lost by just more than a second. You'll find that in other races in that league, there are multiple competitive strats that all can win as well. Still, yes, you can gain a lot by having a competitive strategy that suits the conditions of the track. So you can start off by copying and see how it fairs. Then it depends on how you are able to manage your race pace through most of the race by ensuring you have good tyre temp and push level management, the right stint length for your fuel levels & tyre wear, as well as adapting your strat in real time to counter someone else's strat if necessary (in the league that my 100% distance team is in that you highlighted, I did an undercut in Hungary with my SS stint in the middle of the race to stay in front of Gary who went all SS. This decision was not done pre-race, but on the live viewer). 100% distance races are pace races for the most part, but if there are close battles, it means KERS tactics and such become very important as well.

Point is, if the track conditions and temps are similar to the results of the league you are checking, then you should be able to match those times as well. If your qualy times are similar, that might be a good indication that the potential pace should be the same with the other league, but take it with a grain of salt. Still, 30secs difference is rather large whether you're running in similar conditions or not, so keep looking to optimize your pace!

Here is my time in Aus 100% 2-3 months ago in another league when it went 2.0x speed 100% distance for a couple seasons: https://igpmanager.com/app/d=result&id=3741400&tab=race Indeed the winning time is similar in similar conditions (around 10C+ temps)

Come to think of it, having temps shown in race results would be a neat feature to have for data collection as well.

Okay thanks Nik, I'll be racing in Aus again tomorrow and I have two drivers Talent 20 and of similar ability so I will try my strat and another strat from your league and see the difference. My league races in Aus at 10pm Aus time whereby your league races at 8am, so I guess weather temps should be very similar.

Regarding drivers, with only Talent, Stamina and Weight matters, I will reserve judgement on that due to the fact that in another league I have a 10 Talent guy with slightly less skills than an opponent who's driver is Talent 5 (stamina weight is maxed out) but his experience stat is 3 points higher, cars are virtually the same but our races are always close with him winning sometimes between 4-8 seconds and visa versa. We're both of similar ability so should it not be the case that as my Talent is double of his that my driver should be winning by a much wider margin?

Also if it is only those 3 things that matter on a driver, how come the top league managers don't just race a 20 talent driver straight out the box (after the stamina and weight maxed out) instead of spending time on maxing out their stats before racing them?

I'm asking these questions to gain a better understanding on the mechanics of the game (as it may be mis-construed that I'm trying to undermine you) and I know that you have a 'wealth' of experience in this game and I always appreciate your advice and reading your posts.

No need to fear questioning me since I often find something new about this game to learn as well. Glad that you appreciate my rather clunky walls of text, though!

We still like to max our drivers, since if it actually does make a difference no matter how minuscule, might as well do so to get every bit of an advantage. I think it's a psychological advantage as well to see max stats on your drivers! The unmaxed driver I linked you however managed to get pole 3 times this season so far (1 in the 2nd half of the season where everyone should have maxed their car design sans cooling and reliability).

The general consensus is that Talent is the biggest determiner of a driver's ability, with most other stats not affecting much (something can definitely be done about that since driver stats really played a role in old iGP), so a driver with higher Talent should be beating those with lower Talent. Months ago while I was getting back into iGP, I had a 10 Talent and 1 Talent driver in my Tifosi team. The 10 Talent driver not only consistently beat the other by quite a margin in qualifying, his race pace over 50% distance races was around 15 seconds quicker on average. If the difference in Talent is not that much, like 18-19 Talent vs 20 Talent, they might have more chances in beating the 20 Talent driver, but since Talent affects qualifying pace as well it will be tough against really great competition. Experience also does not seem to have a particularly dramatic effect from my experience (bad pun), especially since I have this driver who's won the Drivers' Championship every season so far since he was a 17 YO rookie: https://igpmanager.com/app/d=driver&id=1804651&tab=attributes

Managers like me do hope aspects of the game like driver attributes, and cooling and reliability car design stats, will be improved to have a more significant impact though.

I also hope that they improve the stats so that cooling and reliability have a bigger impact as currently it's so easy to improve your car as you can rule out those two stats.