It took a very special tyre to finally grab the attention of PADDY COMYN
WHO CARES about tyres? Hands up? As we so often preach about here at Motors, the most important part of your car is the four black rings under it. Yeah, yeah. Heard it all before.
Tyre companies have to think of innovative ways of launching tyres. Most fail miserably. Even the most enthusiatic of motorists tend to glaze over at the mention of tyres. Having had many a lovely snooze through tyre press conferences, I wasn’t exactly thrilled at being assigned to a tyre event earlier this month.
The tyre in question should have been a clue that this was no ordinary conference.
The ContiSportContact5P, to give the tyre its proper title, is the successor to the ContiSportContact 3 (there will be no four because it is bad luck in China, apparently), the tyre used on cars like the Ford Focus RS and the Renault Megane RS. It is a high-performance tyre that is as good on the racetrack as it is on the road. So when they set about replacing the No 3 with a new tyre they started from the top down: the first release of the new tyre is for ultra high-performance cars with tyre sizes of 19 inches and above.
The Monteblanco circuit in Spain was the destination for the launch of this new tyre. This is a circuit where, if you drop in unannounced, you are likely to see F1 teams testing their new cars. We arrived to see a collection of some of the world’s best performance cars: the Ford Focus RS, the Renault Megane RR, the Audi TT RS, the Volkswagen Scirocco R and not one but 10 Porsche 911s. Kids in a candy shop.
We started on the wet handling circuit. All the cars bar the 911s were there and we set out on a specially designed circuit with hoses spraying gallons of water on the track.
All the cars were fitted with Racelogic VBox tracking devices which video your drive, recording your times and the angles at which corners were taken.
The grip from the new tyre was very impressive. Having driven the Megane just a couple of weeks ago with ContiSport3 tyres fitted, this new tyre on the same car gave an even more assured grip. Continental has given this new tyre a multiplicity of smaller tread lugs in the central and side tread sections to create large numbers of lateral edges in the tyre surface. These lateral edges function like a windscreen wiper, cutting through the film of water on the road so the water under the tread lugs can be quickly dispersed. The result is incredible.
In the afternoon, we tested the three evolutions of the new tyre Continental had worked on since the launch of the ContiSport3. We tried them back-to-back in the 911s with full telemetry on the cars. This was a chance to see the alchemy involved in developing a high performance tyre.
The Evolution 1 tyres, developed in 2006, felt good but the telemetry after five laps showed my driving was quite a bit off that of the racing driver in the same tyres. No surprise there; my ultra-efficient German tyre mentor explained I was failing to be efficient in a number of key areas in my driving. Most was down to talent, but I was also not braking hard enough. A graph showed I was applying half the amount of brake pressure as my professional driving rivals. But I found solace in the fact my cornering ability was close to their racing driver’s. I was a “tidy” driver.
The Evolution 2 tyre appeared to have greater slip: the car’s traction control had to work harder and while power-slides through corners are fun, they aren’t going to get you fast lap times. But this evolution of the tyre installed greater confidence and the telemetry showed that. The braking got better and I had to input less steering out of bends to settle the car. The science was all starting to make sense.
Then it was time to try the finished ContiSportContact 5P.
By now, I was familiar with the track and much braver, but even taking this into account, the telemetry didn’t lie. I shaved seconds off the lap times and braked harder than the professional racing driver.
For the first time in my life, engineers were asking me questions and taking notes. My times were “very respectable” – now it all started to make sense.
In these new tyres, the upper tread section, called the cap, is designed in such a way that ensures maximum grip and it certainly seems to have done its job.
This ham-fisted hack had turned into a respectable racing driver in one afternoon and that is no mean feat.
The ContiSportContact 5P will be fitted as standard to the Mercedes-Benz AMG models, the Ford Focus RS and the Renault Megane RS and can be bought for wheel sizes of 19-inch or above. Prices are expected to start at about €200 per tyre.
