Everything that you're saying is true, but I think it's also relevant to point out that this is most likely an issue of optimisation rather than a wilful neglect of depth. I don't think pretending to simulate these things is a bad thing, as long as it's done effectively - as OP points out, currently it is not effective, and needs to be changed, but I don't think we can move towards accurately simulating all of the tyres, temperatures, ERS etc. without raising the required specs. Patches need to address the unbalanced AI, but they will do it in a way that preserves the initial building blocks of the game's engine.
That's true and I agree. In all of this we need to understand the F1 series is a yearly release. They cannot change tire physics all the time, they need to do it game by game, as I believe it's impossible to do it when the game is already out.
Just looking to the actual sim games, like LMU or iRacing, look how much time they need to actually perfect them. It's something it takes months to do, and they know that the AI racing is the least of their priorities, so a lot of things don't need to be changed on that aspect.
However in this game, if you change something in the tire model that affects the AI it will probably change a lot of other aspects in them, creating more problems.
What makes me mad, is the fact that, theoretically, older F1 games did not had this problem. Like F1 13 you could actually see the AI struggle for grip on changeable conditions and suffering from tire deg. How can something in older games be there, but not in a game from 12 years after?
