For me there is something very satisfying about completing a race in the wet, you need 100% concentration and need to control the throttle when accelerating, short shifting through the gears until you get the traction. I really enjoyed wet races in F1 2021 as the AI were at a competitive level and I could usually finish in the points.
But every wet race/qualifying I’ve done in F1 22 has been almost impossible to compete. I was 3s a lap slower in Brazil when conditions changed from intermediate to full wet but the AI stayed on intermediate tyres and I just had a wet qualifying in Brazil again where I finished 20th. The traction they were getting out of some of the corners was like it was still dry. The performance difference is so great that you start doubting yourself and stop enjoying the game.
I think a large part of this is the AI using surface temperatures only so their tyres are always in the perfect window but they’re also way to OP in the wet.
@VibrantMass616 and @ScarDuck14 well the AI dont use surface temps at all, they only use carcass temps and are fixed to them once reached - i havent tested if i can influence how fast they heat up..
However even with carcass temps turned off you will struggle compared to the AI because the perfect grip for full wets for example is 65°-85° and even with highest pressure you will only reach 65° surface temps with high speed (over 300kph) or while cornering a medium speed corner.. However the drop off below 65° is not bad till below 55°.. 55° is still 99.5% grip but 50° already 98% grip which just adds to it.
Of course the AI also has the advantage of build in traction control - they can be perfect on traction and need to be fine tuned to make more little on throttle mistakes with increased wetness, not like spinning out but just overdoing it slightly or not going enough throttle so they dont exit a corner perfectly, every little bit makes it better..
And one point that i personally think is a major point for driving in the wet being unpleasant is the balance between front to rear. So from what i know on average the balance between front to rear (oversteer-understeer) goes to rear (understeer) the softer the tyres. Which is why they sometimes change the front wing angle mid race not because of drivers complaining about balance - which happens often enoguh - but because they go on a harder tyre (like soft to hard) and feel more comfortable like that.. Now Wet and intermediates are way softer than even the C5 (in theory) so they should be much more understeery and they are in high load situations theres almost a 20% grip difference between rear to front at maximum load. However at minimum loads the difference is only 2.5% so much less understeery! Thats affecting the most traction zones and lets us struggle for grip! So this balance needs to be changed to improve our experience IMO.
One thing that also helps is decreasing the front wing by a huge amount so you get a better balance that way but that will be too much in high speed cornering! But yeah the tyre balance + AI traction zone "mistakes" would be the first steps id advice, surface temps for inters and wets might also be something to look at or just give us more depth to play with so carcass influences surface too and have brake temps play their real role so we can go for 0 brake cooling in the wet and have our brakes explode once it dries up😝 buuut im beginning to dream of what could be again haha
