F1 glossary · tires
The loss of tire performance and grip caused by heat and chemical changes in the rubber, rather than physical tread loss.
In Formula 1, "degradation"—often shortened to "deg"—refers to the loss of a tire's performance due to chemical and thermal changes. While it is related to physical wear, degradation specifically describes how the tire's rubber compounds lose their ability to generate grip as they are subjected to extreme heat and friction. As the rubber "cooks" during high-speed cornering, it loses its elasticity and adhesive properties, leading to slower lap times.
Degradation is the primary factor in determining race strategy. As a tire degrades, the car's lap times increase because the driver can no longer carry the same speed through corners. Teams monitor "deg rates" in real-time to decide the optimal window for pit stops. A car that can manage its tires effectively can stay out longer or use softer, faster compounds for more laps, gaining a massive tactical advantage over rivals who must pit early to replace "falling" tires.
A clear example of degradation management was seen throughout the 2023 season with the Red Bull RB19. While many competitors, such as Ferrari and Haas, often suffered from high rear-tire degradation that caused them to drop back during a race, the Red Bull car kept its tires within the ideal temperature window. This allowed Max Verstappen to maintain consistent pace over long stints. Conversely, at the 2024 Japanese Grand Prix, high track temperatures led to significant thermal degradation, forcing most of the grid into aggressive multi-stop strategies to avoid a massive drop-off in performance.
Fans often use "wear" and "degradation" interchangeably, but they are distinct concepts. Wear is the physical thinning of the tire tread as rubber is literally scraped off onto the track surface. Degradation is the loss of the rubber's internal grip properties. A tire can still have plenty of physical tread remaining but suffer from such high thermal degradation that it becomes unusable for competitive racing.
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