One of the problems with slow grip drop-off is that it induces sliding super early and then half of driving with this car is almost constant diagonal sliding, which if not feels that much wrong from cockpit due to not knowing how it should be, it looks absolutely off from replays. One of the goals were to put car in good grip for broader range of performance. And as much as I have seen footage from the time, they do not drive these cars diagonaly the whole time, they look driven like you expect from a car, with occasional gentle powerslides, which also fits into logic that tire performs better up to higher peak, and then peak is just sharper.
I understand that it is unpopular choice by me, but I believe it is right. Interestingly tire should feel more controlable, untill it is not, and require some anticipation and reaction to maintain it in its operational slip and temperature. But I guess the concentration part is the one which is unpopular in simracing. It is non modern low sidewall super wide tire, but it is also not that sharp IMO
I did not very much driving of these both when Autounion was released, but 3/4 laps with W125 were clean, and none with AutoUnion. So I am not entirely sure if Autounion is that much easier, but if it had same tire logic then it would be even more so, surely. To me this sharp tire logic is not a big trouble, I just have anticipation for it, and now that I shouldn't be drifting it and bring it back sooner than later, and thats it. One thing that helps AutoUnion is that it has more load on rear tires, and also a bit less power, naturally it has better traction than W125.
I disagree that current tire doesn't match the behaviour as seen in footage from 30s. I also disagree with comparison to driving on ice. Ice is like the opposite of sharp, and previous tire was much more like ice - start sliding early, and slide a lot more. Current tire simply has MORE GRIP and then more sudden loss of it (which you don't like), thats all to it. It generally has more grip. You can induce wheelspin, anywhere, but just have to be more careful with it.
I agree about the logic that tire with tall sidewalls and narrow tread should be more gradual to loose grip. But it is not everything. We don't have wide 30s tire example as comparison. And the tire had grip then, I think it is general misconseption that these old tires were super slippery, their worst property was their durability. I think with a grip that is not "nothing" a tire is logical to have higher grip peak, but then it of course needs faster fall-off to maintain the net total of grip, otherwise it becomes unrealistically too quick. And to repeat... these properties I find to match old footage of these cars. Finally speaking of being gradual, I think we forget how non gradual is the torque of this car, being over 900Nm, well unless you have rather gradual foot. I would agree about increasing slip angle slightly, I have reduced the slip angle indeed, but I did it so to battle ice skating of the car, Ironically you call out this tire to be icy, even though it is completely different story. I would agree with a bit more slip angle, but I don't want to allow it to skate everywhere unrealistically. I would give the tire few degs of slip peak angle back, if I could somehow avoid it becoming a fairy tale super high degree drifter at high speeds. The car will have the grip, as a result it will have drop - off. You ask me to remove grip, and remove drop-off. In my perception older tire is ice, not the new. Our perceptions are so different.
Overall it is interesting to do such tire, because it is exploring some piece of tire puzzle, that was never done by Kunos. But I am sure they would have made a tire to be very gradual.
