I know that tires can be understood in terms of 'hard' vs. 'soft'. However, that seems very laymanish to me... is there a more rigorous variable to describe this characteristic? and what units are used to measure?
Also, what are other variables that teams use when evaluating a tire? I can imagine that related to the above are grip and durability, and maybe some kind of derived value to describe tradeoffs between the two. I'm interested in having a better understanding of those two variables as well as any other that teams use.