For me this 'realistic' tyre choice argument breaks when you consider how realistic tyre restrictions are in racing. Racing cars generally use slicks, little argument there. What about stock cars? well stock cars don't race, there's dilemma no.1. stock cars have to have safety modifications first to be eligible for competition purposes, an issue that Gran Turismo can conveniently skirt as it doesn't have to conform to safety standards So who cares, lets imagine are cars now have fire extinguishers and role cages and are otherwise stock. In real life what series would they enter now, what regs would they be subject to?
Again there is a problem, different cars different race series, how can we possibly pin down realistic regs for each individual race event? Ok well in gran Turismo cars conform to Performance points, again not realistic, so we are going to struggle to compare to real life realistic regs.
Ok, so we choose 650 PP for this, and there are a good number cars that can enter this, tuned track day beasts, clio, amuse/opera 350z, infact basically all the track ready gran turismo tuned cars can enter, as can top of the line supercars as can bang for buck sports cars Evo, subaru, Rx-7. All of these have to be encompassed by 'realistic' tyre regs.
Right so that means, my Ferrari F40, his tuned Z06 and your Rx-7 have to run on the same type and compound of tyres width and radius excluded of course. Well not a problem normal race series allow slicks most commonly, so why can't they be used here? that wouldn't be unrealistic. Of course some superstock series run with ordinary street tyres but we still have the problem of all the cars having different stock tyres in real life, not to mention the cars aren't stock anyway because they all have to be tuned to meet 650PP, so running the tuned engine without upgrading the tyres
is unrealistic.
Of course its not necessarily realistic to put slicks on stock cars either, in real life chucking slicks on your road car will destroy it quickly on the track, your looking at ruined drivetrains, toasted brakes, suspension damage, even a warped and distorted chassis (but don't worry our imaginary role cage will stop that
)
You can't really say what is and isn't realistic tyre choices for race events because PD's physics model doesn't simulate mechanical damage, weather and other factors which determine tyre restrictions in real life. Just as long as I don't have N1's on my Ford GTLM or R3's on my Suzuki cervo then there is no realism problem. A 650PP race series could just as easily be run on sports or racing tyres and its really only down to preference on which would be the right choice. Personally I would go with 650PP or > for R tyres and 450 < for N tyres but who am I to say that is the right thing to do. Wouldn't it just be much easier if PD just say; 'why don't you choose yourself'? Or have some resistricted races and some de-restricted races?
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