Expert Advice
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Tires... under pressure. The expert clears all doubts
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Omar Valbusa is a mechanic of vast experience who works for CRG and currently in charge of kart preparation for official factory team driver Paolo De Conto. We asked Omar evrything there is to know about tires, since they are a fundamental performance element, be it on a short stint, like in qualifyings, or on long runs, as in a final race.
Depending on circuit layout, track and weather conditions, and tires’ potential wear and tear, you set your starting pressure based on experience and standard manufacturer guidelines (specific for every make and model). Usually you set off with higher values for warm-up stints and then adjust down as needed.
You gauge tire pressure as soon as the driver pulls in from the first stint. The sooner, the better (even before propping the kart up on the trolley), so you can get realistic measurements that are as close as possible to actual racing values. You want pressure to correspond to the optimum hot-tire value for the specific make and model you are using.
No, it actually varies depending on the make and model. For any given tire, the ideal hot pressure is always the same. This is what we take as our benchmark, not tire temperature.
At turn-in, weight shifts to the contact side (left on clockwise tracks and right in counter-clockwise tracks), causing tires to overheat. This is why the outside front and rear tires are inflated to a lower pressure than the inside tires.
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