Given
51%
while driving a
Fiat 500 Abarth
(215/40 R17) on
a combination of roads
for 4,000
spirited miles
The Accelera 651 Sport is marketed as an All-Around multipurpose semi-slick; capable of enduring the demands of performance driving while also providing good road manners. I did not find this to be the case.
This review comes after having had two sets of these tyres(2k miles each) in their 200 Treadwear compound fitted to my 290hp big turbo Abarth 500; each time only enduring one trackday before being rendered useless. Tyre temperatures were monitored and pressures were set to 30PSI hot, front and rear for trackdays. 30PSI cold for road use.
Dry grip was comparable to a budget road tyre, non-existent and inconsistent. On track they displayed a significant oversteer bias with inconsistent front axle grip and really rather soft sidewalls for a semi-slick. The surface of the tyres wore quite heavily on the inside edge, suggesting they are not suited to aggressive front end alignments in "grip" use, front axle camber was set to -3.5 degrees, backed off to -1.7 after multiple laps. Rear axle camber was -0.5, rear tyres wore reasonably evenly.
In the wet these tyres offer about 70% of the grip they have in the dry, suggesting the tread pattern is really rather good at evacuating water and the compound is not too terribly temperature sensitive.
Speaking of temperature, these tyres withstood multiple heat cycles with no real drop in performance over their lifespan, so(as suggested by the website) would probably make very good rear axle tyres for high power drift cars. Minimal feathering was observed by the end of each trackday.
On the road, these were extremely noisy(even more so than any other track tyre I've ever used), wore at an accelerated rate, were very squirrely in the wet at 50% and below tread depth and despite having soft sidewalls for track use were extremely stiff on the road.
I would recommend the 651 Sport if you are needing an *extremely* affordable semi-slick on the rear axle of a front wheel drive track car or are trying to encourage oversteer in a FWD track car. Otherwise, you would be better served by the Nankang NS2R 180TW tyre in similar sizing which has longer life, better grip, better feedback, is less sensitive to aggressive geometry and has similar heat management.