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Originally Posted by iraghava The AD07 would also be infinitely better than the AO48/888 in wet conditions which might be encountered in normal street driving. |
Speaking from my expereince, I would say that this is partially true. I have been out on the track in very wet conditions and found the A048 shockingly grippy.
This is especially notable because at Virginia international Raceway, there is a series of very fast downhill corners (called the roller coaster and Hog Pen) just before you get dumped on the front straight. At the bottom of the hill, at the last corner, the elevation is lowest (before you start climbing up the front straight), and the car slams down on its springs here while turning (my front left tyre has made a hole in the splash shield from coming in contact with it). In the wet, this is a very dangerous corner at any time, but in the wet, it becomes absolutely wicked because its a low point and water collects here and flows across the track right there. Also, the flow of water is at an angle to the track so you don't hit it square. you hit it first on the front right, then on the front left. Suddenly slow down or aquaplaning of the right starting a moment before the left due to earlier contact with the water, in the middle of a high speed, high G corner causes the car to spin. On rainy days, endless number of cars go spinning off the track here, onto the wet grass and it makes for very spectacular offs.
THe reason I mention this is, the A048 was absolutely unflinching in these wet conditions.
However, this is true ONLY when the tyre's tread depth is near full.
When the tread depth goes down, it becomes frightening. It gets so bad that going 90km/h in a straight line, not accelerating, on wet tarmac, no standing water, will cause instant sliding if you go over some smooth textured pavement. People have reported very frightening expereinces when hitting standing water on the road.
Frankly, these are not tyres for road use. I do not use them on the road (unless I haven't had a chance to switch to the AD07s). The level of speed at which they start showing advantage is too high for the street and the penalty they extract is too high.
See, most people, even enthusiasts are not comfortable generating large slip angles. They are not expereinced in managing speed and weight transfer to use the grip any tyre can generate if driven properly. What most people want is to drive exactly as they are used driving (you turn the wheel, car goes where you point it), so if they go faster, they want a tire that generates the level of grip they want without generating large slip angles.
If I can explain it another way, people use 50% (for example) of a tyre's grip ability. In that range, they don't have to do anything much beyond turning the wheel. But to get above that, they have to move into the upper 50% zone which requires a different level of driver ability. THis is because the more of a tyre's grip you use, the more you feel it flex and slide, and you have to have the ability to control the tire in this zone so as to extract the most grip from it. Most people don't have this ability. So when they reach the the 50% (for example) point of their tyre, they start looking for a tyre with more maximum grip. this is not because they will use its maximum grip, but because it lifts that 50% point as well, giving them more speed without having to change how they drive and how they interact with the tyre.
My expereince at the track has taught me that speed on the track is not about horsepower or handling. Its about the driver's ability to exploit the maximum grip potential of any given car/tyre combination. if you are good enough to exploit the maximum any given car/tyre can do, only then is more horsepower, better handling, more grip going to be useful.
I have arrived at a point where I look for a tyre that lets me inch my way into the upper zone in a safe forgiving mannr. I am going to stop using A048s/R888 type tyres on the track. In fact, I am going to drop down even below the AD07. What I want is to learn how to get more out of normal performance tires.
When I bought my last MX-5, the one i have currently, it had 14 year old non-performance tyres on it that had gone very hard and were just useless. And the car's alignment was all wrong. But then I visited a friend of mine who was a retired race driver. this guy had never driven an MX-5 before. and yet, as soon as we got to a windy road, he suddenly started going faster than I can managed even now, with all this track work in a car like a lotus. The speeds he generated through the corners, on those crap tyres, were simply unbelievable.
The fact is, he was extracting more grip from those tyres in that car than I have ever managed to extract from the grippiest tyres I have fitted to my Lotus.
The ability to extract more of what a tire is capable of, that is where the skill of driving, the satisfaction of driving, the thrill of driving really truly resides.