The AI not being subjected to the same tyre model as us players is indeed an issue.
Plus, there's no guarantee it will take some tweaking in the near future to make it more approachable. But about how realistic the behavior is...
Every racing tyre has a drop off point, usually called the cliff. It is a very distinct point wherein your laptimes take a significant hit, even if you were to always keep your workrate stable.
Say you're so consistent and precise that you can keep demanding the same level of work from your tyres. Your lap times will gradually increase as you squeeze the life out of that rubber, then you hit the cliff and those laptimes shoot upwards, increasing drastically and keeping on increasing from then on.
That's due to how the tyres behave. They're elastic, and grip comes from how they deform and how they twist. They're always on a cycle of heating up and cooling off, heating up and cooling off.
As the tyre thread runs thin, and the rubber goes over a significant number of cycles, the rubber simply cooks. This transform their properties and they cannot work as before.
Again, not saying the game is spot on, and that F1 tyres have their cliff at around 20% or so. But then, what are those percentages anyway?
Rhetorical question, obviously. They're simplifying and gamefying what would look very differently on a race engineer screen in the pitwall. There's no "Lewis, your front left has hit 18% wear". They're monitoring temps and performance (slip angles, slip ratios and behavior), and constantly adjusting their marks a plethora of factors like track and air temperature evolve.
But the behavior? The cliff? That's realistic. And it should not be changed, just tweaked.
I like how the tires work now, and the sudden loss of performance makes three or even four stops sometimes reasonable that is pretty cool. (for those who play 100% race like me)
I agree it feels like it affects AI less, BUT especially in MyTeam, you have to understand your car is a brick first year, and you have no upgrade for saving tire performance.
But if it is true that AI doesn't get the exact tire effect, it should be fixed. I have no data or knowledge that it is true. As I primarily drive bricks in MyTeam and tires improve significantly with upgrades, I am never sure if my car is at fault or AI is cheating. (my car does get much better at seasons 2-3 with updates)
Plus, if I look at the setup on site for the car, I notice they only lowered tired PSI but don't put much effort into modifying them for better tire performance people only worry about the best lap in general, pushing setup to the extreme and than wondering why tire won't last long.
I am not an expert or a pro. I mostly play solo, so I am not familiar with all the problems of tires in multiplayer, but so far, I like how they behave in MyTeam.
