Who has the best tire?

[jhansen]

This may seem like a no brainer, as the number one answer is fairly predictable. But I'm curious as to how all of you rate the various makes of tires utilized in sportscar racing. From my knowledge (which is rather limited) the following makes were shod this year:

Avon
Dunlop
Goodyear
Michelin
Pirelli
Yokohama

There may be more. Feel free to add a make if I have left one out. The question is, how would you rank the tire makes with one being best. I'm sure Michelin will top most lists. But I'm curious how the remaining slots line up.

I'd rate them as: 1) Michelin, 2) Dunlop, 3) Goodyear, 4) Pirelli, 5) Yokohama, 6) Avon

[pirenzo]

Michelin I guess.
I don't really know anything about relative competitiveness, other than the Michelins are the tyres to have.
Probably I'd put Goodyear next though, just on the fact they've generally been the more successful tyre company over the past few years in all motorsport.

[Edmonton]

Michelin

[slicktsax]

Michelin. no doubt they have the best. even the corvette team switched to them this year and noticed the improvement of lap times and they could double stint. look at michelin's domminance in the ALMS, LMES, Lemans, and FIA GT

[tblincoe]

michelin for everything except mid-engined GTS cars... i believe pirelli takes the cake in that department right now.

[GT1]

Michelin.

Though I think Yokohama's are underated.

Dunlop also impressed me this year with the Rollcentre Dallara, particurally considering they had early problems with the size of the tire vs the way the Dallara was designed for Michelins.

[Fieldgate]

GT1 - and we still never got a proper construction.

Dunlop wet is better/consistent (and a different diameter to the dry tires (ho-hum).

Michelin has definitely been the tire to have of choice and are generally considered to be 1.5 - 3 seconds dependednt on circuit, but as importantly are said to improve driver confidence (which probably accounts for most of that gain) and can generally multi-stint (R8's were quad stinting drivers and tyres at LeM this year !)

But I think you're right with the Yoko comment, they have had insufficient general use to form an overall opinion, but the Japanese Dome did pretty well on them (caveat - though never really competed long enough in mixed conditions to form an overall opinion)

[marcush.]

With Jota switching from dunlop to Michelin at silverstone
one could clearly see the difference .Even though you could claim Jota was at home in silverstone ,and Zytek had
made their testing with michelins ,so could help them more with setup .
But then Creation was always at the sharp end with the dunlops ,especially with mixed conditions wich we certainly had this year.
So maybe Michelin has some advantage in terms of tyre endurance,with double ,triple stints possible ,but punctures were the big issue this year ,and this was on michelin and and dunlop shod cars as well.
With reference to Laguna and PetitLM i´m still puzzled about the Dyson performance .I thought their Goodyear contract would help them more than it did actually.

[paul-collins]

Goodyear. I have one from the 1984 Mosport-winning XJR-5.

...wait, that's not what you meant, is it?

[PascaLM]

Michelin.
And what did become Firestone who were engaged in F1 and Proto in the early 70's ?

[GT1]

Firestone quit F1 in the early 1970s. They were taken over by Bridgestone some time back and since then sadly have been put mainly in CART/IRL/Indycar/Whatever other name they want.

I saw a documentry on the Lotus 72 once and it said that the beginging of the end for that car (along with its age) was when Firestone quit.

In Mario's book it talks about how he was offered an F1 drive many times in the early 1970s, including Ferrari, but his salary was being paid by Firestone USA and it would not have benifited them much to see him mainly in Europe, even if at times he still would have been on Firestones...

[pounetbf]

Originally posted by jhansen
This may seem like a no brainer, as the number one answer is fairly predictable. But I'm curious as to how all of you rate the various makes of tires utilized in sportscar racing. From my knowledge (which is rather limited) the following makes were shod this year:

Avon
Dunlop
Goodyear
Michelin
Pirelli
Yokohama

There may be more.

I know it is not really in sportscar, but don't forget Bridgestone

I think there is not only one N°1.
depending of weather, track, car design, category,.... it could change.

But michelin is probably globally the best

[Bob Riebe]

Originally posted by PascaLM
Michelin.
And what did become Firestone who were engaged in F1 and Proto in the early 70's ?

It was sad when Firestone quit after 1974; the tire wars was part of what kept racing interesting, not to mention improved tires, as a whole, greatly for everyone.
Bob

[Redlake27]

It depends on the partnership with the team, but this year I'd say Michelin did an impressive job for Audi, but Dunlop were often the pacesetter on the Zyteks in LMES.