If Carlsberg did tyre tests...

[jon-]

They'd probably be a lot like this one (Russian warning!)

http://www.autoreview.ru/_archive/section/detail.p...

Absolutely love the attention to detail, not only have they written reams about how the tyres feel and charted them in 13 different ways, they've even taken pictures of how the tyres wore after the tests!

If your translator isn't up to the job I've done a very poor translation of the test but if you're remotely into tyres, I'd really suggest having a good read of the original as it's like they mated EVO with Auto Bild, with the illicit lovechild being better than the two parts combined!

Of perhaps it's just me that gets excited by this sort of stuff

[Squabbler]

Круто!
What's exactly Carlsberg-ish about this tyre-test?

[jon-]

Squabbler said:

Круто!
What's exactly Carlsberg-ish about this tyre-test?

From an auto enthusiast point of view, it's the best tyre test I've ever seen. And I've seen a few.

Edit: Here's an auto translated version: http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&...

[Smike]

jon- said:

From an auto enthusiast point of view, it's the best tyre test I've ever seen. And I've seen a few.

Edit: Here's an auto translated version: http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&...

Good find jon-!

I wish I was fluent in Russian

[Jonathan Legard]

Call me a cynic but these tyre tests are usually performed at a tyre manufacturer's test venue.

In virtually every one of these events, the 'home' tyre wins. This test is at Contidrom and the Continental tyre gets the best figures. I don't know whether this is down to the technicians who are rigging the equipment consciously or subconsciously making conditions more favourable for their tyre or whether the journalists consciously or subconsciously want to repay a perceived debt for the tyre maufacturer looking after them for the duration of the test.

I've noticed this in many, many publications.

[jon-]

Jonathan Legard said:

Call me a cynic but these tyre tests are usually performed at a tyre manufacturer's test venue.

In virtually every one of these events, the 'home' tyre wins. This test is at Contidrom and the Continental tyre gets the best figures. I don't know whether this is down to the technicians who are rigging the equipment consciously or subconsciously making conditions more favourable for their tyre or whether the journalists consciously or subconsciously want to repay a perceived debt for the tyre maufacturer looking after them for the duration of the test.

I've noticed this in many, many publications.

It's a fair point. I've actually spoken to Conti and some of the other tyre manufacturers about this and they don't deny there's an advantage, but apparently it's only very slight.

Any manufacture is free to offer their grounds out to journalists, it just so happened that last year Conti was the one pushing the agenda the most. I think this year we're going to see a few more at other locations, for example I'm fairly use Auto Express are using Bridgestone this year.

The 5P is a great tyre, but with the P Zero so close there's a chance the top 2 could have been swapped if it was at a Pirelli circuit. It would have still been very close though.

[HellDiver]

Jonathan Legard said:

Call me a cynic but these tyre tests are usually performed at a tyre manufacturer's test venue.

In virtually every one of these events, the 'home' tyre wins. This test is at Contidrom and the Continental tyre gets the best figures. I don't know whether this is down to the technicians who are rigging the equipment consciously or subconsciously making conditions more favourable for their tyre or whether the journalists consciously or subconsciously want to repay a perceived debt for the tyre maufacturer looking after them for the duration of the test.

I've noticed this in many, many publications.

Could it be that the "home tyre" is designed to be good because of the company's own test venue? If you're designing a tyre to be good at resistance to aquaplaning, and your test road for aquaplaning is a certain way, then obviously your tyre is going to be best on that same track. If you see what I mean.

It interesting to see the Bridgestone so low. I think it's about time Bridgestone put the RE050A out to pasture, it's well past it.

Edited by HellDiver on Friday 1st April 09:19

[jon-]

HellDiver said:

It interesting to see the Bridgestone so low. I think it's about time Bridgestone put the RE050A out to pasture, it's well past it.

They have, sort of. The S001 is now on the market, aimed pretty much as the same segment, and the S04 has just replaced the RE050A in America (no word on whether its coming to the UK yet though)

Bridgestone have a huge historical issue with OEM fitments that has stopped them pushing ahead with new tyres. They make something like 30-40 different versions of the RE050A!

[HellDiver]

jon- said:

They have, sort of. The S001 is now on the market, aimed pretty much as the same segment, and the S04 has just replaced the RE050A in America (no word on whether its coming to the UK yet though)

Bridgestone have a huge historical issue with OEM fitments that has stopped them pushing ahead with new tyres. They make something like 30-40 different versions of the RE050A!

I don't know that it's like in England, but here in N. Ireland the only Bridgestones you can get off the shelf tend to be the Turanza ER300, and the B250. If you want anything else, it's usually an order and a long wait.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of the ER300, I've tried many others, and I keep on coming back to the ER300. It annoys me that the fleet here are fitted with Goodyear only (to the point of changing wheels on certain vehicles because Goodyear don't sell the OE size). We've 280hp FWD cars fitted with Goodyear Excellence, for example, and that's only because we're finding the NCT5 difficult to source.

[Alfanatic]

HellDiver said:

Jonathan Legard said:

Call me a cynic but these tyre tests are usually performed at a tyre manufacturer's test venue.

In virtually every one of these events, the 'home' tyre wins. This test is at Contidrom and the Continental tyre gets the best figures. I don't know whether this is down to the technicians who are rigging the equipment consciously or subconsciously making conditions more favourable for their tyre or whether the journalists consciously or subconsciously want to repay a perceived debt for the tyre maufacturer looking after them for the duration of the test.

I've noticed this in many, many publications.

Could it be that the "home tyre" is designed to be good because of the company's own test venue? If you're designing a tyre to be good at resistance to aquaplaning, and your test road for aquaplaning is a certain way, then obviously your tyre is going to be best on that same track. If you see what I mean.

It interesting to see the Bridgestone so low. I think it's about time Bridgestone put the RE050A out to pasture, it's well past it.

Edited by HellDiver on Friday 1st April 09:19

Exactly. If that's where the tyre was developed, that's where it will perform at its best. A bit like setting up an F1 car to run well at Silverstone, then trying to run it with the same settings at Monaco, it's not going to perform at its optimum. Meanwhile, the F1 car set up at Monaco will do better on its home turf but will perform below its optimum at Silverstone.

If the test centre has been designed well, and it does its best to represent common conditions worldwide then this difference should be minimal, but I'm sure there will always be a small advantage to the home team, which have in effect had practice runs on the competition ground where the others have not.

[jon-]

Alfanatic said:

If the test centre has been designed well, and it does its best to represent common conditions worldwide then this difference should be minimal, but I'm sure there will always be a small advantage to the home team, which have in effect had practice runs on the competition ground where the others have not.

I'm not entirely sure why, but a lot of the test centres use a race track type tarmac, which has a much higher coefficient of grip than normal roads.

[Alfanatic]

jon- said:

I'm not entirely sure why, but a lot of the test centres use a race track type tarmac, which has a much higher coefficient of grip than normal roads.

That blows my theory a bit then. I wonder why they don't use a surface representative of road conditions then? Unless when they want to see how it performs on normal roads they drive out the gate and travel around on some normal roads, then ship a few tyres to the USA and drive around on some roads normal for USA etc.

[jon-]

Alfanatic said:

jon- said:

I'm not entirely sure why, but a lot of the test centres use a race track type tarmac, which has a much higher coefficient of grip than normal roads.

That blows my theory a bit then. I wonder why they don't use a surface representative of road conditions then? Unless when they want to see how it performs on normal roads they drive out the gate and travel around on some normal roads, then ship a few tyres to the USA and drive around on some roads normal for USA etc.

To be fair, I'm positive the specifically built ones do have road surface sections, but all these tests seem to concentrate on the lap times, usually set on the high friction stuff.