Yesterday I went out to the Fontana Auto Club Speedway for an event put on by Michelin called the 25th hour. Got a chance to flog their new tires on a variety of cars and challenges. HAD A BLAST!
First event- Road course
Car: Lexus IS-F
We took the IS-F out on the road course with the PSS tires first, feeling out stability at high speeds (100-ish), heavy braking, and high speed turning grip. All around the tire was very grippy with a lot of forgiveness when going around corners. Never had any understeer and even with mild corrections in the middle of a corner, it stayed planted and predictable. We then immediately took out the same car with Pirelli PZero Nero; it was a completely different experience. The car wanted to understeer coming into corners, drift out of corners, and hard braking from 100 to about 40 made the car feel light and squirrelly.
Second event- Autocross
Car: BMW 328i
Again we took the car with the PSS out first, feeling out the car and track on the first lap, picking up the pace on the second lap, and then really mashing on it on the third lap. The tire has some understeer with tight, low speed corners, but preformed well all the way around the course. Right after we finished the last lap, we jumped in an identical 328i with Continental Extreme Contact DW's. The DW's were much worse in the same corners that the PSS's were having some issues in. Trying to keep the same pace as I did with the PSS's, the DW's kept forcing me to the outside of corners, getting off line and into the gravel. The slalom was especially interesting with the DW's... Nearly got swapped around on a couple of the cones. After we did 57 total laps in each car, we looked at the tire wear on both. The PSS were showing some normal wear for break-in on an autocross track, but the Conti's were nearly dead, with the middle tread down to the wear bars!
Third event- Braking
Car: BMW 328i
This time we took out the car with the competitors tires (Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric) first, braking in the dry from about 55mph and braking in the wet from about 45mph. Had a Drift Box in the car to measure speed, g-force, and braking distance. We then repeated the same test in a 328i with the PSS tires, and recorded the data. You couldn't feel a huge difference in the two braking distances, but the PSS stopped about 5 ft shorter in the dry and about 1 ft shorter in the wet averaged between everyone.
Fourth event-Hero cars
Cars: Audi, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Nissan, IS-F
The main event. We got to go out on the track in each one of these cars, and they were a blast! The Audi and Nissan felt equally fast around the track, the Ferrari felt slightly slower (may have been my imagination) and the Aston felt slowest. It was impressive how well the Aston handled the track though, being a front heavy V12 RWD car. I also got to go out for a hot lap with Tania Bourbonnais in the IS-F... She's a very talented driver and can't wait to see her drift in person.
Big thanks goes out to Michelin, the staff, the dealers that loaned the cars out, and all the participants for making it a great and enjoyable experience!
Video of the supercars:
First event- Road course
Car: Lexus IS-F
We took the IS-F out on the road course with the PSS tires first, feeling out stability at high speeds (100-ish), heavy braking, and high speed turning grip. All around the tire was very grippy with a lot of forgiveness when going around corners. Never had any understeer and even with mild corrections in the middle of a corner, it stayed planted and predictable. We then immediately took out the same car with Pirelli PZero Nero; it was a completely different experience. The car wanted to understeer coming into corners, drift out of corners, and hard braking from 100 to about 40 made the car feel light and squirrelly.
Second event- Autocross
Car: BMW 328i
Again we took the car with the PSS out first, feeling out the car and track on the first lap, picking up the pace on the second lap, and then really mashing on it on the third lap. The tire has some understeer with tight, low speed corners, but preformed well all the way around the course. Right after we finished the last lap, we jumped in an identical 328i with Continental Extreme Contact DW's. The DW's were much worse in the same corners that the PSS's were having some issues in. Trying to keep the same pace as I did with the PSS's, the DW's kept forcing me to the outside of corners, getting off line and into the gravel. The slalom was especially interesting with the DW's... Nearly got swapped around on a couple of the cones. After we did 57 total laps in each car, we looked at the tire wear on both. The PSS were showing some normal wear for break-in on an autocross track, but the Conti's were nearly dead, with the middle tread down to the wear bars!
Third event- Braking
Car: BMW 328i
This time we took out the car with the competitors tires (Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric) first, braking in the dry from about 55mph and braking in the wet from about 45mph. Had a Drift Box in the car to measure speed, g-force, and braking distance. We then repeated the same test in a 328i with the PSS tires, and recorded the data. You couldn't feel a huge difference in the two braking distances, but the PSS stopped about 5 ft shorter in the dry and about 1 ft shorter in the wet averaged between everyone.
Fourth event-Hero cars
Cars: Audi, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Nissan, IS-F
The main event. We got to go out on the track in each one of these cars, and they were a blast! The Audi and Nissan felt equally fast around the track, the Ferrari felt slightly slower (may have been my imagination) and the Aston felt slowest. It was impressive how well the Aston handled the track though, being a front heavy V12 RWD car. I also got to go out for a hot lap with Tania Bourbonnais in the IS-F... She's a very talented driver and can't wait to see her drift in person.
Big thanks goes out to Michelin, the staff, the dealers that loaned the cars out, and all the participants for making it a great and enjoyable experience!
Video of the supercars:
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