hello everyone and welcome in this video
we're going to be talking about the
successor to the Michelin Pilot Super
Sport tire which is the Michelin PS4s
now the super sport was often regarded
as the best tire in its category and now
Michelin has improved upon that tire and
I was invited by Michelin to go check
out this tire I got to test it out on
the track on some autocross courses and
out in Joshua Tree in some supercars in
Audi rate uh Mercedes AMG GTS so super
cool experience getting to try out these
tires but I want talk about you know
some of the differences that are in this
tire in order to make it better than its
previous Tire the Michelin Pilot Su
Sport and so you know one of the
obviously the most important things with
any tire is the compound but this is
kind of this mysterious black art that's
kind of behind the scenes uh you know
where each company has their proprietary
blend of 20 plus uh compounds or
whatever it may be in order to make that
perfect tire that perfect amount of grip
um but so you know some of the more
physical differences that you can see
we're going to be talking about here and
one of those is this Aid nylon belt so
this hybrid belt that they use this is
done in order to maintain the shape of
the tire so they put a lot of emphasis
with the PS4s on you know making sure
that that contact patch uh has the ideal
you know contact with the ground and
also that the shape of the tire doesn't
change depending on whatever you're
doing to it and so this tire has a y-e
speed rating meaning it's rated for over
186 mph 186 6 Plus um and so you know at
these high speeds you're going to have
obviously very high g-forces on that
spinning Tire um and so you need to be
able to maintain the shape of that tire
not have it expand out or change in
shape so that the contact patch uh
remains ideal on the ground uh also for
you know High GeForce cornering things
like that you want to make sure that the
shape of the tire doesn't deform so you
have that ideal contact patch so that's
done with this airamid nylon belt which
they have woven in the tire and so the
placement of this belt and you know how
where you put tension on it um is very
important for how the steering response
is going to feel and for the endurance
of the tire so the tire lasts a long
amount of time now moving on to another
thing here we're looking at the contact
patch of the tire in a high uh GeForce
turn and so if you can imagine going
around a corner and you're looking at
the outside tire so you're going to have
you know these five different strips
here you've got that Groove uh those
tread grooves where water is allowed to
pass through so obviously you're not can
have contact in those tread grooves but
you can split it up into these five
sections and here on the left we have
the previous pilot superport and then
here on the right we have the pilot uh
4S Pilot Sport 4S and so you know the
difference you can see here we're
looking at a heat map basically of
pressure and then that translates into
temperature uh but essentially what they
were able to do with the new
construction of the new tire you know
some of it has to relate to this belt
some of it's the compound um but point
is if you're on this h gForce Corner
you're going to have all that pressure
going towards the outside of the tire as
you can see here so this is the outside
uh this is going to be the inside of the
car here outside of this tire right here
and they have this hot spot in the
previous uh Michelin superport which
they were able to basically distribute
uh better in this tire so if you've
watched my video on Tire load
sensitivity you know that you want
pressure distributed as evenly as
possible because the more even the
pressure distribution is the more grip
you're going to have the coefficient of
friction of a tire go goes down as the
load on it increases and so if you're
able to distribute that load more evenly
you're going to have more grip now
another thing uh that they've done here
is this multi- tread compound with an
asymmetrical tread so this is actually a
really cool thing uh where you know you
may think that there's going to be just
one compound used for the tire but
actually they've split it up into
sections where you get a varying
compound across the tire so once again
if you're looking at the outside of that
tire you're going to have this dry
compound and then on the inside of the
tire you're going to have this wet
compound uh which is more ideal you know
for wet scenarios and it's going to give
you good grip in wet conditions and so
why would you do that why would you have
the inside well if you think about it
when you're driving in the wet or when
you're stopping in the wet uh you're not
going to be having real high GeForce
turns uh because you can't you're
limited by grip and so the inside of the
tire is more important in lower G uh
turns and it's important of course in
breaking when you're in a straight line
line now when it's dry and you have tons
of grip and you're able to push that
contact patch out to the outside of the
tire you can see that you're going to
want you know a nice uh High grip
compound for that area and so that's
what they've done they've split up the
compound as you go out towards the end
edge of the tire so that you have more
grip in the dry on the outside better
grip in the wet on the inside and
another thing you'll notice with this
tread composition and this tread design
is that you're going to have larger more
rigid tread blocks towards the outside
of the tire and that's of course for
those higher G scenarios to give you
increased lateral grip now Michelin
isn't purely content in just saying that
it's the best tire in the wet and the
dry uh they actually have the data to
prove it so they commissioned a third
party to do some testing for them um and
they were ranked the number one tire in
wet braking dry braking and in dry lap
times and so here I've just listed out
the dry uh braking distances uh which is
pretty incredible looking at the
differences between the tires this was
all done on an Audi S5 um all the cars
uh using and then basically the
top-of-the line summer tires for these
different companies now these aren't the
track oriented tires like the cup tws uh
that are out there this is you know
michelin's ultra high performance summer
tire that's also very capable on the
road and in wet conditions so the PS4s
stopping at 110.4 FT over the average of
their test runs Bridgestone Penza uh s
so4 Pole Position 15 15.3 ft Continental
extreme contacts uh 117 plli p 0's 116.5
and the Goodyear Eagle f1's 11 15.3 so
you can see the Bridgestone potenzas and
the eagle F1 in second place there and
there's still a 5ot difference in
stopping distance uh versus the PS4s
tires so really impressive dry breaking
they also have the numbers out there for
their wet braking and the dry lap times
it is a really impressive difference you
know like a second or two faster on the
Super Sports around the track that they
tested on versus the competition now I
actually got to try out these tires uh
in an autocross course and I tested out
the PS4s the bridgeston and the
Continentals and what was really
fascinating about my testing uh
initially on my first run for each of
the tires I got two runs on each tire my
first run the bridgeston and the pilot
Super Sports were really even in
Breaking I think they were both at about
114 ft um and then the Continentals were
a little bit worse in braking but then
on the second run so you're going twice
in a row so the tires are heating up as
you're doing this my second run once the
tires were all heated up the pilot Super
Sport uh or the Pilot Sport 4S's
actually improved they went down to 113
feet whereas the continental and the
bridg stones both got worse on the
second run after the tires had heated up
and so I think they were at about7 118
ft there whereas the PS4 s's were at 113
um so really impressive that even as you
add heat to that tire it's not degrading
in performance whereas if you added heat
into the Continentals and the bridgeston
it was degrading in performance now as
far as driving these on the autocross
course you could actually feel the
difference uh pretty significantly so
the Continentals uh to me you know there
was a lot of under steer which was
pretty noticeable the bridg stones
honestly felt really good the first run
um and then they started to deteriorate
on that second run um and the only you
know major difference I noticed is it
seemed a little bit more tail happy than
the PS4s uh tires and the PS4s tires
great turn in um honestly and so you
know very good Tire on that autocross
course now another thing that Michelin
did that was really cool is they set up
this breaking board that you could look
at and see everyone who had been doing
the autocross you could see what their
braking distances were based on the
tires that they used and you can see you
know the cluster of stickers uh that's
much shorter braking distance for the
PS4s tires and this is you know just all
of us uh you know random people that
they invited uh to test out these tires
you know these are our actual uh braking
distances which they put up there and
you can see the PS4s Tire doing really
well so a super super impressive tire
out of Michelin um really appreciate
them for having me out and checking them
out thank you guys for watching if you
have any questions or comments feel free
to leave them below
[Music]
that's a good sound it's got a nice wine
to it