Technical Air temperature vs track temperature

[wotnotv]

Hi,

I've seen the advice to consider temperature when choosing the tyre pressures to set on the kart. But is it air temperature or track temperature that is most relevant in this case?

Regards,
Tom

 

[Adam]

Hi,

I've seen the advice to consider temperature when choosing the tyre pressures to set on the kart. But is it air temperature or track temperature that is most relevant in this case?

Regards,
Tom

To try and help, not sure if I'm right or wrong but: I have a big sheet of testing data and we always set tyre pressures to weather condition, ie temperature and then visual weather, sunny, sunny spells, overcast etc etc. It seems the air temp should go hand in hand with track temp within reason. But then you could have a different track temp from a test day to a busy race day. Always run the same laps in a test session than a race etc, or if the session is longer just note what lap the tyres start to go "off".

Tried the "it must go up by X psi" route, didn't really work too well. We found that aiming for a "hot" psi of X is a better gauge. If you got the tyres turning on, and maybe going off on the last lap or so, then you cracked it.

0-30psi gauge for slicks, 0-60psi gauge for wets - Rotax anyways, not sure on cadets. 0.5 psi makes a big difference, believe it or no!