This was an interesting event. With nothing particularly new to unveil, Hankook Tires gave us the opportunity to compare its high performance tires against the opposition. The purpose of the exercise appeared to be to show us that while Hankook may not be on the tip of your tongue when listing the top tire manufacturers, its products are actually very competitive. Well, that was the theory.
The practice would involve us running an autocross track in a trio of both Mitsubishi Eclipses and BMW Z4s. Not quite the standard we'd come to expect after the Advan event (see p70), but we persevered to prove we're not totally spoiled brats.
First up was the Hankook Ventus R-S2 Z212 on the Eclipse. It would be compared to a Falken Azenis RT-615 and Kumho Ecsta MX. To be honest, the nasty car disguised the benefits of these tires but against well-established opposition, the Hankook showed itself well in this company.
More interesting to us was the BMW. We would be comparing the Ventus S1 Evo K107 (ridiculous name) against the Michelin Pilot Sport 2 (a favorite of ours) and the Pirelli P Zero Nero. This was a more applicable test since the Z4 has a lively chassis well suited to autocross and we're familiar with the European brands we'd be testing.
What we learned is that again, the Hankook tires performed reasonably well. While not offering the grip and precision of the Michelins, they held on much better than the Pirelli.
Now I wouldn't want to accuse our hosts of cheating, but obviously this wasn't a scientific test conducted under controlled conditions. We don't know what the tire pressures were and got very little time in the car to acclimatize to the rubber. However, I did spin while running on the Pirellis, which seemed to lack grip under cornering. To be honest, we were all surprised how badly the P Zero performed, and they certainly didn't suit the Z4.
We discovered in last month's annual tire test that Pirelli makes numerous versions of a single tire and could possibly have done better with a different construction. But it did prove Hankook's assertion that its performance tires are capable of performing as well as or better than some of the established names.
This point was verified by our annual tire test (et 11/05), where the K107 was the quickest tire through our dry slalom and finished in the top four in both dry skidpan and lap times. However, it was only average in braking and poor in the wet, which brought it down in the overall ranking. So if you live in drier parts of the country, the K107 is a respectable tire to fit. Visit hankooktireusa.com for more details.