FH6 Fuel & Tire Wear Guide — Simulation Damage Explained
Most FH6 players turn simulation damage off and never think about it again. That's fine for sprint racing and free roam. But if you're running endurance events, custom Goliath sessions, or any race longer than about 20 minutes, fuel and tire wear become the whole game. Understanding the systems under the hood makes the difference between a clean finish and coasting across the line with three flat tires and an empty tank.
Simulation damage has two modes in FH6: cosmetic (visual damage only, no performance impact) and simulation (full mechanical damage, tire wear, and fuel consumption). This guide assumes you're running simulation. If you're on cosmetic, none of this applies — but you're also missing out on what makes long races genuinely tense.
How Fuel Consumption Works
Fuel consumption in FH6 isn't a flat rate. It scales with throttle input, RPM, and the engine's displacement. A 6.5-liter V12 burns fuel about four times faster than a 2.0-liter inline-four at full throttle. The game models this per car, so your fuel strategy for a Bugatti Chiron is completely different from your strategy in a Honda S2000. Stock fuel tanks hold enough for roughly 25 to 40 minutes of hard driving on most cars, though hypercars with big engines can drain a tank in under 20 minutes on a track with long straights.
You can monitor fuel level through the in-game telemetry HUD. Enable it in settings under HUD and Gameplay > Telemetry. The fuel gauge sits in the bottom-right panel. It reads as a percentage, and on most cars you'll start feeling power loss below 5%. The fuel warning light comes on around 10%, which is your signal to start thinking about strategy.
Cars with turbochargers burn slightly more fuel at peak boost than their displacement would suggest. Naturally aspirated engines are more linear — what you see in displacement roughly matches consumption. Electric cars like the Rimac Nevera or Porsche Taycan don't consume fuel at all in the traditional sense, but their battery state of charge depletes on a similar curve. On very long races (over an hour), EVs will need to manage power output to avoid running dry.
Tire Wear Mechanics
Tire wear is the more important of the two systems for lap time consistency. FH6 models three wear factors: camber wear (inside vs. outside edge), temperature-induced degradation, and sliding abrasion. The last one matters most. Every time you slide, lock a wheel under braking, or spin the driven wheels on corner exit, you accelerate tire wear. A clean driver on racing slicks can get 10 to 12 laps of the Goliath before the tires fall off. A driver who's constantly drifting and locking up might be done in six.
Tire compound multiplies the wear rate. Race tires grip harder but wear faster than street tires — about 30% faster on most cars. Semi-slicks sit in the middle. Drag slicks wear extremely fast and are essentially unusable for anything except dedicated drag racing with simulation damage on. Off-road tires on asphalt wear frighteningly quickly; keep them on the dirt.
Front tires wear faster than rears on most cars because braking loads the front axle harder than acceleration loads the rear. The exception is high-horsepower RWD cars where wheelspin eats rear tires. AWD cars tend to have the most even wear pattern because power is distributed across all four contact patches.
When tire wear hits around 30-40%, you lose roughly 5-8% grip. At 60%, the drop is closer to 15-20%. Below 25% remaining, the car becomes genuinely dangerous — braking distances extend, cornering grip becomes unpredictable, and the rear will step out under power with no warning. The tire indicator in the telemetry HUD shows each tire as a percentage. Green is above 75%. Yellow is 50-75%. Orange is 25-50%. Red is below 25% — if you see red, you're racing on borrowed time.
Pit Stop Strategy for Endurance Races
FH6's pit stop system activates automatically in races where the lap count or time limit makes fuel and tire wear relevant. When simulation damage is enabled and a race exceeds approximately 25 minutes of expected driving time, pit lanes become functional. You'll see an icon on your minimap indicating the pit entry as you approach.
Entering the pits requires you to slow to pit lane speed (roughly 60 mph / 100 km/h). An on-screen indicator will flash if you enter too fast. Missing the speed limit results in a time penalty or automatic drive-through. Once stopped, you get options for tire compound change and fuel fill amount. Tire changes take roughly 4-5 seconds per wheel. Fuel filling takes about 1.5 seconds per 10% of tank capacity. A full service — four tires and a full tank — runs roughly 25-30 seconds of stationary time plus the pit lane transit.
The strategic question is always: one stop or two? On a 50-minute race, most cars can stretch to a single stop around the 25-minute mark. On a 90-minute race, two stops are almost mandatory for anything above 3.0 liters displacement. The decision tree looks like this: if your tire wear is even and you can stretch the fuel, run one stop. If one axle is wearing significantly faster (common in RWD cars on circuits with long sweepers), you may need to pit early for a tire-only stop to avoid the grip cliff. Experienced endurance racers will often short-fill the fuel on the first stop to save 10-12 seconds and make up the time by driving more conservatively on the second stint.
Driving Techniques to Extend Tire and Fuel Life
Short-shifting is the single biggest fuel saver. Shift at 5,000-6,000 RPM instead of redline and you'll extend range by 15-20% with minimal lap time loss. This works because fuel consumption scales non-linearly with RPM — the top 2,000 RPM use disproportionately more fuel than the mid-range. On straights, a partial throttle lift-and-coast technique saves another 5-10% at the cost of maybe half a second per lap. Worth it on races where fuel is the limiting factor.
For tires: smooth steering inputs. Every sharp correction scrubs rubber. Trail-braking gently loads the front tires progressively rather than asking them to handle a sudden spike. Avoid curb-hopping — the impact momentarily unloads the tire and then slams it back down, causing micro-tears that accelerate wear. On tracks with high-speed chicanes, prioritize a clean line through the middle over clipping the apex perfectly. The apex attack costs you tire life; the clean line costs you a tenth per corner and saves you a lap of grip at the end.
Temperature management also matters. Tires that overheat degrade faster. If you see tire temps in the telemetry consistently above 210 degrees Fahrenheit (99 Celsius), you're either overdriving or running too much negative camber. Back off slightly and the temps — and wear rate — will come down.
Car Recommendations for Endurance
For pure endurance efficiency, smaller-displacement cars with good aerodynamics dominate. The BAC Mono is excellent — lightweight, modest engine, high downforce. The Porsche 911 GT3 RS balances pace and tire preservation better than most. For S2 class endurance, the Ferrari FXX-K Evo's hybrid system recovers energy under braking, effectively improving fuel economy. Avoid anything with more than 6.0 liters displacement unless you're comfortable pitting more often than the competition.