F1 Fanatic

While I was driving along earlier, I was wondering if any F1 Fanatics were influenced by tyre suppliers in motor racing when the time comes to change their rubber? What matters most, quality or price?

I have a Fiat Grande Punto GP (I don’t know what the GP stands for) fitted with Bridgestone tyres it came with. When it comes to replacing them I’ll almost certainly opt for a much cheaper set of Pirellis, I don’t understand why Bridgestone are so expensive.

For cheap but reasonable tyres, try to get Kumho. It is a really cheap brand, but I had no bad experience with it, if you have more money, Yokohama Avid and Advan series might be a good choice, for high perfomance Yokohama and Toyo would be my first choices. I dont recommend Pirelli, my friend has a BMW 320d (E93) and he used pirellis for 2 years , but had a realy bad experience, as he had to change them year after year, because the backs worn out realy quickly. (He used different tyres in the winter)

I have Pirellis, but I bought them before the season started last year.

My dad got a deal to fit both our cars (two Corsas C) with Pirelli tyres at a much much cheaper price than the competition. So that’s what we got. We didn’t think about performance. Quoting Homer, the price was just “so low, we thought the salesman suffered brain damage!”

It turns out it was a great deal. They are manufactured here in Argentina, and while most people told us that they were rubbish, they are not. Not that I’m looking for superb performance (after all, we’re just driving 1.8 Corsas), but they work very well in the rain and are very durable. And, again, they are very cheap.

For the summer I’ve got Pirelli’s (got them last year, they will probably last me 2-3 years – 40-50.000 km), they are good on most aspects, although Continentals are supposed to be better for fuel economy (but cost a lot more). I read up on them before buying, because of Pirelli having a bit of a reputation for not lasting too well and lacking a bit of wet weather skill, but I found out they adressed these issues in the last couple of years.

For winter tyres I have a set of Goodyears now, a good buy as well

My eleven year-old Mitsubishi Lancer has a set of Bridgestone Supercats that I got last month.

I’ve got Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric2s on at the moment. They’re a great tyre, very strong in warm dry conditions, and seem to have reasonable grip in the wet.

I’ve had the Eagle F1 GSD3s in the past and loved those tyres, really had a nice sharp bite to them with nice feel through the steering. Unfortunately they stopped making them in my size. After that, I switched to Toyo T1-Rs which are a reasonable tyre but seem to be a bit peaky depending on temperature. I found in the winter it was hard to get enough heat into them, and on a frosty road they could be a bit hairy.

I have had Pirelli tyres in the past, and I didn’t think they were too bad. Bags of grip and a really progressive break in traction. Even when close to the limit the car felt very tractable, and you could really lean on the tyre. The initial turn-in wasn’t sharp from them though, and I felt the sidewall construction was a little too soft.

Favourite tyres I’ve used were Toyo Proxes R888s. They’re a summer/trackday tyre, with a very soft tyre compound and a semi-slick tread pattern. Being a trackday tyre they were geared towards higher operating temperatures and so needed to be worked a little bit and heat cycled to bring them into their best operating window. Once warm though, the grip was absolutely phenomenal. Very sharp turn-in with virtually no understeer. Steering weighted up nicely as the load increased, and the very stiff sidewalls gave a really communicative feel. Under braking the grip was something else, and since I was using carbon-ceramic trackday brake pads, I felt I could really heave the brake pedal and get virtually no locking or fade. Wet weather performance was surprisingly good, as long as there wasn’t any real standing water and it wasn’t too cold. Easily comparable to a regular tyre in anything other than monsoon conditions. Flipside of course is that you can’t use them on the road once the ambient temperature gets down to around 7 degrees, as the compound becomes too hard and it is almost impossible to warm them up. Driving hard on them while they’re cold does damage them and causes a bit of surface graining, and of course the wear rate is significantly higher than you’d experience from a regular sports tyre. Worth it though if you can afford to have a second set of winter tyres, as the grip really is something else.

Goodyear Eagle F1 Assymetric2 on the fronts. I got a discount on them which is why I bought them (and they are really, really good) and that I had them on my old Hyundai Coupé and they do just a good a job on my Leon FR. Unmatched in wet conditions, fantastic in the dry but HOPELESS when the snow falls.
Ive got something-or-other on the rears which need replacing soon but had them since I bought the car 15months ago. I plan on getting some Nokian Z G2′s on as they are a supurb “Medium” brand tyre, and shouldnt cost too much (£79 on a 17″ wheel)