Test Summary
Wet Braking	Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2
Dry Braking	Continental ContiSportContact 5 P
Wear	Continental ContiSportContact 5 P

It's not often we report on tyre tests from across the pond. The tyres, roads, and driving conditions can be very different, especially in North America, however this test from the Australian magazine "Australian Motor" was too interesting / random to miss.

Testing 235/35 R19 on a Mercedes A45 AMG isn't that unusual, but the mix of tyres included is! The magazine tested eights tyres in total, and included tyres you'd normally expect such as the Continental Sport Contact 5P and Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 2, but then also included the track day specific Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 instead of the Pilot Super Sport, the Dunlop Direzza DZ102 instead of the Sport Maxx RT, a Winrun budget. An interesting mix.

Track vs Road Tyres

Unfortunately the magazine didn't do any proper laps to judge subjective handling, and the test only covered dry and wet slalom, dry and wet braking, and a figure of eight, but it still gave us a good look at how the track rubber performed next to road tyres.

Unsurprisingly in all but one of the dry tests, the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 was the best tyre, and the only test it didn't win, it finished equal first with the Continental Sport Contact 5P. More interestingly was the gap to the Conti. While the Michelin had the clear lead in dry slalom, the Conti was only slightly behind in dry braking from 62 mph, at 34.32 metres vs 35.79. The third best tyre, the Bridgestone Potenza RE050A was a further 2 metres behind the Conti at 37.50.

In the wet, the top two were slightly different, but for a track day tyre the Michelin did very well to beat all the other road tyres in the wet 'eight' test, and put in a good showing under wet braking to finish in the middle of the pack.

The Budget

The Winrun R330 could only drag itself out of a firm last place in the wet tests, where there it only narrowly beat the track day (and rather dated) Dunlop. It still lagged behind the rest of the group in every test, proving once again, budget tyres aren't quite there yet.

The Rest

One last surprise of the test was the Bridgestone beating the Goodyear overall. The RE050A was replaced by the S001 a number of years ago, and neither have tested particularly well in European tests, which makes it import to remember what works in one test, in one climate on a particular vehicle might not work for everyone. As always, use tyrereviews to aggregate all the magazine and user reviews possible!

The Results