Pirelli Trofeo vs BStone RE-11 vs Hankook Evo-12

Three High Performance Tires Review

This is a tale of three tires.  One is sticky beyond belief on the track, one is the stickiest tire on the highway and one is a nice tire that does everything well to a fault.  One may be the perfect fit for your sports car, like Goldilocks, you’ll have to decide which the perfect fit is.  Most sports cars and coupes, sporty sedans and the like would enjoy riding on any four of these new shoes.

” The automobile is not just a hunk of steel but a living creature with a beating heart that enjoys, feels good or feels bad according to how it is treated. If you want it to respond to all your demands on the road, you must be thoroughly familiar with it and help it express its personality,” Juan Manuel Fangio.

And nothing matters more to a car than its tires.  The tires in question are the Pirelli P-Zero Trofeo, the Bridgestone RE-11, and the Hankook Ventus EVO12.

Pirelli P-Zero Trofeo

 

The Trofeo is a street legal R-compound track tire.  You can drive to and from your track event quite comfortably.  It has a great ride (for an R-compound), it is relatively quiet (the quietest R compound I have tried) and it is not darty on pavement ruts.

 

On the track, instrumented numbers, on a RaceLogic Data box don’t lie.  Lateral cornering grip on a Porsche 911 Turbo in the dry was 1.54 G.  That is a stunning number.  Anything over 1.0 G takes any average driver into a zone where courage and ability wane.  Common sense starts questioning tire technology that can make your body feel so much lateral pull in a corner.  The “what if…” factor starts the foot easing off the throttle?

Instrumented testing on a wet skidpad also produced amazing numbers; with shallow standing water lateral grip was .86 G.  That is what a touring type all-season tire might achieve in the dry.  With no standing water but the pavement damp, the Trofeo delivered .96 G.  The wet numbers came when the tire was still new and had its rain grooves.  Wet grip will fall off quickly as the tire wears down to a slick.

The Trofeos tread wear rating is so low, they may just last a few months or perhaps a summer.  But oh what a summer of fun it will be.

Bridgestone Potenza RE-11 

Bridgestone Potenza RE-11 tire.

  

 

This Bridgestone transfers some of the many years of the company’s F1 race experience to a street tire.  The carcass mimics the F1 tire’s construction.  What the company has done is produce a new King of Traction for a street tire.  The lateral grip numbers constantly hover at just over 1.0 G in the dry.  At that grip level the tire’s handling is so benign, so lacking in drama, it feels normal.  Traction loss is so gradual it is easy to regain grip, with minimal effort.

The RE-11 is not only the champion of high grip; it wins the Ultra High Performance Tire category ride comfort title as well.  This tire takes the sharp edges off the tops of bumps.  The thumping of expansion joints is nicely smoothed out.  And it is quiet.  You won’t mistake it for a Bridgestone Serenity ride but you will be amazed at how such a stiff sidewall can be so soft over cracked broken pavement.

And did I mention the wet?  The RE-11 does not care.  Rain grooves are huge and they work, making this a very predictable easy to drive tire in the wet.  It definitely deserves a number one ranking as the best summer sports car tire out there. 

  

  

Hankook Ventus V12 EVO K110

 

Hankook Ventus EVO V12 tire

 

To mix fairy tales, this is “the little tire that could.”  It is in plain terms, just a great tire.  This tire is good at everything, wet dry, roads smooth or rough, it likes it all.    It performs flawlessly in every test category and scores well above average compared to the competition.

Hankook is challenging consumer’s preconceptions about non main brand tires.  This Korean company has set its sights on high-end cars like Mercedes, BMW and Porsche.  The EVO12 is the result.  It is a tire that is the perfect fit for the average driver of the average high end car.  The tire is never an absolute best in any category but it is so consistent in top third results that it just feels right driving it everywhere but on the track.

The EVO is has tons of grip and is easy to drive and control.  Most drivers will not want to push their cars hard enough to find out the tire’s handling limits.  And if they did they would find a tire that just fades away from grip with no sudden surprises.  It is very drivable at the limit. 

The limits are high, wet or dry.  The steering feedback gives a good sense of what is happening at the contact patch.  The tire has a central continuous rib, so it tracks straight when the roads get rutty.  The EVO V12 is a super tire for those who value ride comfort above absolute grip.

When price is factored in the Hankook becomes an even wiser buy.  It out performs most of its more expensive rivals and only yields to the elite of its class.  And on average it costs about 30% less.

Pirelli P-Zero Trofeo, their DOT street legal R-compound tire.

Welcome

My name is John Mahler.  I’m a car enthusiast, no question about that.  Driving is my passion.  I am lucky to be able to be able to enjoy my passion often.  I am chief instructor for a number of track day organizations in the greater Toronto area.  As a result I spend about 40 days a summer at a racetrack in this part of the world.

When I am not at the track, I write a column called “Tire Talk” for the Toronto Star Wheels section.  You might say that I am the Ann Landers of tires.  Readers write in with questions and I answer them.  Whether it is about sizes, fitments, upgrades or what tire works best on what car, I try to answer them all.

You can see some of my tire columns at: http://www.wheels.ca/columns/columnists/2679

In addition I test and review tires both for publications and for independent tire distributors.  I’m kind of into rubber, but mostly I’m in to how rubber meets the road.

When I say I am into driving, it is about driving; not what you drive, but how you drive it.  I like people who are passionate about their cars.  People who enjoy their cars to the max, but only in a safe responsible environment.  No street racing – take it to the track.  Most folks just don’t realize how easy it is to get “track time” in most parts of the country.  That’s where your Yugo or your supercar should be pushed.

My Plan for this Blog

I’d like to share my views about the track events I go to, what went right, what went wrong and get a discussion going with like-minded drivers.  No picking on any individuals, just general discussions of driving, how track events should ideally be run, perhaps pick up some opinions from participants, to help me do my job better.  I’m open to suggestions about where we go from here.

Thanks for joining me.